Atonement
by Miss Kagura
Summary: SessKag Inuyasha has taken the only person his brother has ever cared about. He will make his amends by surrendering the one person he can't live without...
1. Murder

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**Atonement**  
_By Miss Kagura  
_Chapter One — Murder

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Puppets. 

Naraku had been bombarding them with puppets all week, and they seemed to serve no other purpose than to keep Inuyasha on edge and exhausted. He hadn't slept in days, and it was starting to show in his lack of manners and rude comments to the others.

Night fell and camp was made, but still the hanyou kept his silent vigil. Amber eyes drifted from the monk, to the taijiya, to the neko, and finally to the kit; they all slept peacefully, although Miroku's hand seemed to be subconsciously migrating to the curvature of Sango's bottom. Kagome, however, was tossing and turning, caught in some terrible nightmare.

Inuyasha leapt down from his tree and watched her mumbling lips, trying to make out what she was saying. "…Yasha you have to…destroy Pythagoras with your Wind Scar…triangles attacking me…" White ears twitched in confusion as the hanyou gently reached out and touched Kagome's shoulder, attempting to wake her up. She didn't awaken, but she seemed to relax at his touch.

The fire reflected off his amber eyes as he carefully watched her sleep, fixated on her beauty. She was too beautiful for her own good, or his, for that matter. Her thick, long black hair smelled like Heaven, and her skin…the tiniest amount of lust flickered in his eyes as they followed the smooth curve of her cheeks, neck and shoulders, until her body disappeared under the sleeping bag. Inuyasha had seen her naked before, accidentally, and try as he might to forget, there were times he couldn't get her body out of his head.

A cool chill blew through the forest, and the hanyou leapt back into the tree, resuming his watch. He sniffed the air and jerked his head to the side, and then took off running toward Naraku's scent. Another puppet was en route to his camp and Inuyasha wasn't about to let it get close.

Not far away, Sesshoumaru cut across the rough terrain of the forest in search of something Naraku had taken from him. The only clue he had was a piece of orange checkered fabric with blood on it, and even if he would never admit it, he was terrified. The dozens of puppets spread Naraku's scent around, making it almost impossible for him to make any progress in finding the little girl.

Sesshoumaru's feet came to a sliding stop as a bright streak cut through the earth, uprooting grass and leaving a ditch as it dissipated. His eyes ignored the dead puppet as they found a figure clad in red.

"Didn't see you there, Asshole!" Inuyasha said as he raised the Tessaiga again.

The next thing Inuyasha knew, he was on the ground, with Tokijin pressed firmly against his jugular. Sesshoumaru allowed his sword to cut through the first layers of skin. "You should not be so careless with Father's fang, Little Brother. It is not a toy to be carelessly thrown about at your will."

The sword returned to its sheath and the fabric of Rin's kimono fell on Inuyasha's chest. "Have you picked up that scent?"

Inuyasha's nostril's flared at the scent of human blood. "No, why would you care? This is the scent of a _human_."

"Naraku kidnapped my ward," Sesshoumaru said, his lips half-curling into a snarl.

"Keh. Take better care of her then. It's not my problem," Inuyasha growled as he stood up and dusted himself off.

Sesshoumaru's threatening glare locked on Inuyasha. "When Mukotsu of the Shichinintai was going to rape your bitch, it was not my problem."

"She's not my bitch, Sesshoumaru!" Inuyasha yelled back at his brother.

Icy amber eyes sparkled in amusement at his little brother's denial. "I suppose some other woman is responsible for the lingering scent of arousal on you?" Sesshoumaru didn't care enough to continue the conversation, and disappeared before his brother had a chance to yell something crude at him.

Naraku had obviously run his brother into a state of exhaustion, and hanyou that he was, Inuyasha would eventually have to sleep.

Sesshoumaru looked up at the moon, noting that it was only three days until the new moon, when Inuyasha would become fully human. Was this Naraku's plan? To bombard Inuyasha with puppets until there was a period when he was noticeably unable to fight?

Inuyasha's secret kept him alive, and if Naraku and his pets found out when he was vulnerable, Inuyasha was as good as dead.

None of that mattered to Sesshoumaru at that moment, because his mind was focused on finding Rin.

Inuyasha returned to camp, equally frightened of the impending new moon. He couldn't abandon the others, or move everyone out of the area in time. Worst of all, he wasn't sure that Sango, Miroku, and Kagome alone were enough to handle the onslaught of Naraku's puppets. Without him and Tessaiga, their group was considerable weaker, despite the skills everyone else held.

Whatever Naraku's plan was, they had to figure it out before the moonless night.

Three days passed, and in the hours preceding the new moon, Inuyasha felt his strength start to fade. They found a hut to rest in, and Inuyasha spent a half-hour sitting on top of it, watching the sky fade to pink as the sun set. A puppet hadn't showed up all day, which was comforting and unnerving all at once. He was so tired, and he feared he'd simply pass out when he turned into a human.

"Inuyasha, you should come inside," Kagome said. She was standing in front of the hut shouting up at the stubborn hanyou, who simply shrugged his shoulders and looked back to the forest.

The hanyou leapt off the top of the hut and drew Tessaiga, transforming it before his feet hit the ground. "Naraku's scent!" he said as he raced toward it, feeling his energy leave as the sun made its final minutes of light. All he needed was just a couple of more minutes, to get there and hit the puppet with Tessaiga.

The clock was ticking.

It moved into his field of vision, and Inuyasha lifted the sword. "Wind Scar!"

The blast was nowhere as powerful as it should have been, and as soon as it had been delivered, the sword reversed its own transformation, and Inuyasha fell to the ground as one last scent hit his nose. His hair turned black, his senses dulled, and he was suddenly so exhausted he could barely move.

"Th-that's impossible!" Inuyasha said as he crawled toward the remains of the puppet, which he could have sworn smelled of human blood. A shaking hand pulled the pelt up, and there, under the baboon disguise, was a little girl. Normally, his Wind Scar would have completely obliterated a human body, but it was so close to sunset of the moonless night it didn't even kill her instantly. It just tore her open and left her bleeding, jerking, eyes wide as she struggled to breathe, to move, to scream, anything…

And then, Rin was still.

The crunch of footsteps behind him drove him behind a tree, peeking around the corner to make sure it was the rest of his pack. Kagome clapped a hand over her mouth as she dove next to the girl, checking for a pulse. She and the others looked at Rin, and the remains of Naraku's puppet, and made the assumption that Rin was another victim of Naraku's. Inuyasha remained still, and completely silent.

He had _killed_ an innocent child with his sword. His brain wandered to the warning Sesshoumaru had given him about Tessaiga only days before, and a shaking hand reached into his haori. The missing piece of fabric near the hem of the girl's kimono was in his hand. _This was the girl Sesshoumaru was seeking. _He connected the corpse with the cute little girl always at his brother's feet. Sesshoumaru walked through purification barriers, intentionally fell into traps, and risked his life for the girl.

"I sense a demonic aura!" Kagome said, wiping tears from her cheeks as she prepared her bow.

A glowing ball of energy hovered over Rin's body for a moment, and then suddenly took the form of a kneeling Sesshoumaru. He didn't look at anyone else, or even seem to be aware that they were there. He smoothed his index and middle fingers over her eyelids, and closed frightened, dead eyes that had been capable of bringing him such joy only moments before. His thumb wiped a drop of blood from the corner of her mouth, and then wrenched her fingers from the ground she died clutching.

Miroku and Sango gestured to Kagome, and they started to back up slowly from the taiyoukai.

"Take one more step and die," Sesshoumaru said. His usually icy voice seemed heavy with emotion and grief.

Kagome slid her backpack off one shoulder and pulled out a blanket. "I-I have this If you want something to wrap her in."

Sesshoumaru slid his outer haori off, and awkwardly wrapped it around Rin. It was difficult to do with one arm, as many other things were. He finally pushed one of her limp, broken arms through and tied her green obi around his haori. Claws combed lightly through her hair, and then ran along one of her pale cheeks.

Kagome felt her skin begin to burn and took several steps back from Rin's body. Sesshoumaru's stood and unsheathed Tokijin, and then stepped in front of his brother, who was still sitting on the ground. Sesshoumaru held the tip of it in shaking hands, and pressed it into Inuyasha's throat, where it burned and scraped his skin in time with the rhythm of the trembling hand. His nose told him everything; Rin's corpse smelled like his father's fang, not like Naraku.

Kagome was the first to react and very nearly leapt in between them. "What are you doing? It's not Inuyasha's fault. Naraku killed her!"

His sharp stare cut into her and he put more pressure on the sword, letting blood drip down Inuyasha's throat. "The truth," he said to Inuyasha, who was practically at his mercy in his human form.

Inuyasha pushed his back farther against the tree. Sesshoumaru had obviously figured out what happened, judging from the sword in his neck. The look in Sesshoumaru's eyes was so much more hateful and deadly than he had ever seen on anyone before, and until dawn, Inuyasha knew there was no way he could defend himself or the rest of his pack. "Naraku hid her in a puppet," he said, looking at Kagome, frightened Sesshoumaru might simply decide to kill them all. "This has nothing to do with everyone else. Let them go and then do whatever the hell you want with me."

Scornful, angry eyes pressed Tokijin into his shoulder. "Want you?" he snarled at Inuyasha and twisted the blade, watching the hanyou grind his teeth in an attempt not to scream. Sesshoumaru stared at Tessaiga, and then at the others. "Never."

Inuyasha shoved the Tessaiga at him. "Take it. Just don't kill anyone."

"How proud our father would be to see you kill a mortal child and then offer your blade in her place," Sesshoumaru said as he turned his back on Inuyasha. His piercing gaze moved from one person to another, until it stopped at Kagome, who held Shippou in her arms. "Miko, put the kit down and step away from your friends."

Shippou dug his claws into Kagome's clothing as she started to shake. "Wh-Why?"

"Because I am going to kill you," Sesshoumaru calmly replied.

Miroku stepped in between them and unwrapped the rosary from his hand. "Why would you want to kill Kagome? She has done nothing to you!"

"For the same reason I would kill the taijiya if you had been the one to dispatch my ward," he said.

The monk winced and wrapped the beads back around his hand. "You wish to cause Inuyasha to suffer as much as possible." He looked around, knowing there was no way they could defeat Sesshoumaru with Inuyasha in his human form. His Wind Tunnel would suck up Inuyasha before Sesshoumaru, but Sesshoumaru's speed was the ultimate problem. He always left everyone other than Inuyasha out of his conflicts unless they got out of the way, but he knew it was because he never had a reason to involve them. He gave Inuyasha a look of apology and then bowed. "Inuyasha has committed a grievous offense against you, Sesshoumaru-sama, and taking Kagome would cause him far more pain than I think any of us can imagine now."

Inuyasha stood up grasping his bleeding throat. "Miroku, what the hell are you doing?"

"Let me finish, Inuyasha," Miroku said as he swallowed bile. "However, you can take Kagome away from Inuyasha without killing her."

Sesshoumaru was quiet for a moment, and then his expression softened just slightly. "Everyone leave, except the miko."

"I'm not leaving you alone with her, Bastard!" Inuyasha said.

"You are a disgrace. Get out of my sight!" Sesshoumaru said as he hit Inuyasha with a forceful blast that threw him beyond the group and several meters into the dark forest. Kagome watched as Miroku practically dragged Sango and Shippou away, praying that none of them would do anything to upset Sesshoumaru further.

Sesshoumaru picked the body up and rested it against his shoulder. "You understand that I will kill you and the rest of your pack if you attempt to escape?"

Kagome let out a light sob and nodded. "H-He didn't mean to hurt her!"

The taiyoukai said nothing and when he got too far ahead of her, Kagome stumbled after him, frightened of what he might do if she didn't. After almost half an hour of walking in silence, they arrived at the campsite where Jaken and Ah-Un slept. Kagome sat by the fire and unrolled her sleeping bag, assuming she was supposed to sleep.

"I require a needle and thread," Sesshoumaru said, eyeing her backpack.

Kagome dug through her bag and produced a traumatic needle and suture thread. She offered them to Sesshoumaru, who glared at her. "What?"

"How many hands are required to thread a needle, Wench?" Sesshoumaru asked.

"Oh right, sorry," Kagome said, babbling as she threaded the needle and gave it to him. She noticed the folded-up orange and yellow kimono in his hand, taken from Ah-Un's saddle compartments, and realized he was getting ready to prepare her body. "Do you want help? I have some special stuff to help cover bruises."

Sesshoumaru didn't acknowledge her, and simply turned and walked away again. She presented soap and shampoo to him, and he accepted without as much as a nod. Kagome watched as he stitched Rin closed, cleaned her up, combed her hair with his claws, and dressed her. She always thought he was cold and terrible, but there was no denying that he was acting as if he had lost his own daughter.

Kagome went back to her sleeping bag, and closed her eyes. She hated the whole situation; Naraku's puppets, Inuyasha's mistake, Rin's death, and Sesshoumaru's obvious pain were just too much to deal with. She closed her eyes, and hoped to wake up and find out it was all a nightmare.

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**Please Review!**

**Author's Note: **Why doesn't Sesshoumaru use Tenseiga? Later on in the manga, it is revealed Tenseiga will only work on a person once, and Rin was resurrected with it once already.


	2. Castle in the Sky

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**Atonement**  
_By Miss Kagura  
_Chapter Two — Castle in the Sky

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Kagome woke up and was disappointed to find it had all been real. The dragon's heads were flat on the ground in obvious sadness, and Jaken stood over Rin's body as it lay on the ground. Sesshoumaru simply watched from under a tree, his eyes fixed on Rin's tiny little corpse. She had grown in his care, but she was still so small, so fragile, like sunshine trapped in a glass bottle. 

Sesshoumaru used to wonder if she was eating enough, or if she got enough clean water. He used to absentmindedly think about what Rin would look like when she grew up, and if she would still have such a bright personality. None of it mattered now; whatever dreams the girl held were dead. Her songs, her smile, her skipping feet, and her big brown eyes were lost forever.

Finally, he looked away, seeking distraction from the haunting presence of Rin. He looked to the miko, who almost froze in fear, worried he had changed his mind about letting her live. Even Kagome could tell Sesshoumaru was suffering, even though only his eyes exposed his true feelings.

"I can hear your stomach growling," Sesshoumaru said.

She let out a sigh of relief. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be 'sorry,' Miko. Eat," he calmly ordered.

Kagome nodded and dug through her bag for a can of soup. "Are you hungry, Sesshoumaru-sama?"

"I do not eat human food," he snapped back, wondering why human females seemed to be so concerned with feeding him.

"Jaken? Would you like something to eat?" Kagome offered.

Jaken nodded and Kagome opened two cans of soup, and poured them in a metal pot, which she put over the fire. A few minutes passed, and when the soup was almost boiling, she served it to Jaken in a paper bowl with a plastic spoon. The imp quietly ate it, taking a moment to study the disposable spoon in between bites. When they were done, Kagome washed and put the pot away, and then picked up the campsite.

"We're leaving," Sesshoumaru said when she was finished. He fastened her yellow backpack to Ah-Un's saddle and gestured for Kagome to mount the dragon. After she did, Sesshoumaru leaned Rin's body against her. "Do not let her fall, understood?"

"Sh-She's so cold," Kagome said.

"That is what happens when creatures die, Miko," Sesshoumaru said as Jaken climbed onto Ah-Un and held the reigns.

Kagome didn't dare say anything else, and the dragon flew upward, following Sesshoumaru, who stood on a flying cloud in front of them, leading the way. They traveled for hours in silence, and Kagome occupied herself by watching the somber imp expertly handle the reigns of the surprisingly gentle dragon.

She understood why Sesshoumaru had taken her from Inuyasha, but it still made her miserable. He obviously didn't care about how Inuyasha's punishment affected her, and Kagome wasn't even sure what would happen to her. Would he let her go home? Was she doomed to simply follow Sesshoumaru and Jaken for the rest of her life?

The fact that Inuyasha made rash, careless decisions was no secret. The fact that he often did it with his sword was also no surprise, and even though it was Naraku's scheme, Inuyasha was ultimately the one that killed Rin. The scheme only made it so that Inuyasha's recklessness turned the brothers against each other, probably to make them kill each other.

Kagome thought about the smiling girl she had seen with Sesshoumaru, looked down to the cold body in her arms and found tears forming yet again. How many times had she told him to be careful? It was an accident, but it was one that could have been avoided if Inuyasha was a little less hasty, a little less crazy, and a little wiser when it came to his sword.

After awhile, around noon, Kagome saw something among the clouds. "Is that a castle?"

"It is a fortress," Sesshoumaru replied.

"Who lives there?" Kagome asked as she wondered why they were going to such a place.

"I do," Sesshoumaru answered.

Ah-Un landed on the edge in between two huge Inu, who sat in their true forms on either side of the gate. Kagome got off, and a couple of soldiers took Ah-Un to be stabled. Sesshoumaru took the body and disappeared, leaving Jaken and Kagome alone to wander the massive fortress.

Kagome followed the little imp, who broke his silence when they were alone on a street. "What happened to Rin, Wench? Why are you here? Sesshoumaru-sama doesn't order anyone to follow him, and doesn't need anyone, even this humble toad! Why would he require a human bitch to remain in his company?"

Kagome blinked slowly and began walking again. She explained what happened to Jaken, who nearly had a fit in the middle of the street. "So many things had the hanyou taken from Sesshoumaru-sama! His father, his inheritance, his arm, and now…Rin? She was like a daughter to him!"

At the mention of Sesshoumaru's name, youkai and humans on the busy street started to gravitate toward them, in an attempt to hear whatever gossip Jaken was freely distributing at high decibels. Kagome grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into a shop with her hand clamped tightly over his mouth. The shop, which sold various types and colors of silk, was very quiet other than the shouting imp. "…Sesshoumaru-sama was right all along! That hanyou is unworthy of Tessaiga!"

Kagome shook him. "Jaken, shut up! You're making a scene!"

Jaken finally calmed down and Kagome left him in the shop alone, not wanting to hear any more of Jaken's words about Inuyasha.

"_She was like a daughter to him!"_ Kagome crossed her arms and walked down the busy street, stopping only to take out her umbrella when it started to rain. There was a part of the city that was walled-off, and Kagome could sense the biggest demonic auras coming from behind it. Assuming she might find Sesshoumaru there, she followed the wall until she got to a gate.

The guard at the gate seemed to sniff at her, and stood aside without saying much. He wasn't sure who the girl was, but she smelled of not one, but both of the Inu No Taisho's sons. He watched Kagome start up the stone steps into the area of the fortress where Sesshoumaru's family lived. The fortress itself had to be at least fifteen or twenty square kilometers and more or less seemed like an entire city floating high in the air. There were trees, gardens, huge buildings, and even water running through the strange floating fortress.

Kagome felt nervous because she could feel several demonic auras stronger than any of the ones she had encountered other than Sesshoumaru and Ryukossei, and they were all in a very small area near her. Rethinking her plan of going to find Sesshoumaru, she followed a gravel-covered path into a forested area, feeling completely alone and vulnerable. The path led through dark, old trees and areas that Kagome knew were infested with youkai. When she reached the edge of the forest, the path descended down to a graveyard, where Sesshoumaru sat.

Sesshoumaru was leaning against the statue of a huge dog, and had his head down on his arm, which rested on his knee. The rain washed mud off his hand, and a few meters from him there was a deep hole that had clearly just been dug. She stood in front of him, and he didn't move at all, so she sat next to him and held the umbrella over them.

**Flashback  
**With a single sweep of Tenseiga, Rin returned to the world of the living, where she opened her eyes to look into the deep amber ones that had found some slight amount of compassion for her. A strong arm held her up, and then helped her to her feet. Sesshoumaru wondered how one so small and weak could survive alone in the world, and how one human child could be brave enough to approach him, much less try to take care of him.

He didn't need her care and most certainly not her pity, but in the days before, the girl's visits had given him something to look forward to, even though he had no idea why he waited for her. The child had been bruised for him, but hadn't spoken a word about him. No doubt that the humans would have hunted him down and forced him to kill them if Rin had given even the slightest hint that they had a taiyoukai sleeping in their forest.

Sesshoumaru cruelly mused over the fact that if the villagers had been kinder to mute orphans, he might have been a little more inclined to do something when he sensed dozens of wolves descending on their village. The mute orphan, on the other hand, had been spared by his Tenseiga.

Sesshoumaru turned and had made it nearly a dozen steps ahead when he heard her bare feet getting closer, crunching in the leaves with each step. Suddenly, she broke out into a run that was surprisingly fast, even for Sesshoumaru, and wrapped her arms and legs around his left leg, sobbing.

"Rin was so scared!" she screamed loudly enough to hurt Sesshoumaru's ears and send birds all over the area flying.

Tiny fingers clenched his hakama, and the startled taiyoukai reached down and gave her a pat on the head. "Rin?" he asked, shocked that the girl could speak at all. At the mention of her name, Rin's bawling instantly stopped as she looked up at him, holding on to him for dear life.

"Rin knew you would come," Rin said.

Sesshoumaru didn't understand his own reasons for finding the girl after he picked up the smell of her blood, and had no idea why she would. "Why?"

Rin looked up at him as if it were completely obvious. "Just because."  
**End Flashback**

Just because, Sesshoumaru always made sure to camp near food.  
Just because, Rin picked him flowers every day.  
Just because, Sesshoumaru spent many nights awake, watching her sleep.  
Just because, Rin sang and skipped, never wanting to return to humans.  
Just because, Sesshoumaru risked his life for her.

Sesshoumaru still didn't know what it meant. All he knew was that he would have died for Rin, and could come up with no reason other than 'just because.'

Kagome swallowed hard as Sesshoumaru looked up at Rin, and then to her. "Where I come from, people think it helps to talk about their loss."

The taiyoukai ran muddy fingers through his hair, brushing it out of his face. "I'm a few moments, I am going to put Rin in a hole and cover her in dirt because I have no desire to see maggots crawl out of her eyes or smell the flesh rotting off her body."

Kagome covered her mouth and dropped the umbrella, crawling backward from Sesshoumaru, who grabbed her foot and dragged her back, leaving grass burns on her thighs. "Don't talk about it like that! If she was really like a daughter to you and you loved her—"

Her words were cut short by a hard slap to the face. It wasn't a warning slap, or a 'be quiet' slap. Kagome sat, petrified, and felt a drop of blood run out of her nose and down her upper lip. She tugged on her foot, which Sesshoumaru had grabbed again after slapping her, and cupped her nose. "Why did you hit me?" she cried out.

"Just because," he said. His words were hollow, but at the same time, almost hateful.

_Just because I loved her…_

"That is not a good reason to hurt someone!" Kagome shrieked.

Sesshoumaru let go of her foot and she watched as a cruel, wicked smile formed on his lips. "It is the best reason."

Kagome sobbed into her hands, and a mixture of tears, blood, and rain ran down her arms. "I'm only trying to help! I'm so sorry…he didn't mean to…h-he would never hurt a child on purpose…"

"I think you and your half-breed have done quite enough to 'help' Rin," Sesshoumaru snapped back.

Kagome stood up and sniffled, forcing the crying to stop. "Rin wasn't the one I was trying to help!" She ran down the path, through the forest and back into the city, hoping to find the only person she knew. "Jaken!" Her foot caught a crate and she came crashing down to the street, scraping her hands.

It was pouring down rain, she felt terrible about Sesshoumaru, worse about Rin, she was in pain, and the thing she wanted most — for Inuyasha to save her — was the one thing that Kagome knew would never happen. When a youkai approached her from behind, and hooked his hands under her shoulders, she just went limp. Kagome didn't care anymore. She closed her eyes and wished herself somewhere else.

A few minutes later, the youkai carrying her stopped and Kagome heard a fan snap open. She opened her eyes and saw a beautiful youkai standing in front of her with a frown. She was in a bedroom, but she couldn't tell exactly where. "Did Sesshoumaru give you that bruise?"

Kagome nodded, and the woman sighed. "My son really has the most horrid manners. Don't think he wasn't taught better."

Another youkai female started to wipe her scraped hands with a cloth soaked in an herbal disinfectant. The woman continued speaking, and introduced herself as Sesshoumaru's mother, Nikkou. "I saw what Sesshoumaru brought back with him. What happened to the human child?"

"Inuyasha killed her accidentally...with Tessaiga," Kagome softly sputtered.

Nikkou closed the fan and studied the miko. "How tragic to watch my only son lose the first person he would die for," she said, remembering watching Sesshoumaru leap into Hell and offer Tenseiga up in exchange for Rin's life. Her son made a conscious decision that day and chose Rin over acquiring a powerful sword and even his own life. When the ordeal was over, and Rin was safe and well, Jaken told her than Rin made her son happy. "Sesshoumaru did not bring Tessaiga home, so am I to assume the hanyou is still alive?"

Kagome nodded.

Nikkou frowned as she realized why the miko was in the fortress. "You wouldn't happen to be the hanyou's legendary miko, would you?"

"That was someone else," Kagome hissed through clenched teeth.

"The one who nearly purified Naraku?" Nikkou clarified, somewhat certain she was correct. Myouga had described Kagome, and she highly doubted there were many people in the world dressed like _that._

"That was me. I thought you were talking about someone named Kikyou," Kagome said as she felt the servant wipe dirt out of the scrape on her thigh. "Unnph…" She bit down on her lip for a moment. "I didn't know I was 'legendary.'"

Nikkou whispered in the servant's ear and left. Her son was suffering, and like all prideful men, he had chosen to do so alone. It was a lesson the miko would have to learn, regardless of her pain and guilt. It was a terrible arrangement that Sesshoumaru had come up with; he hated humans, he knew he hated humans, and she apparently knew he hated humans.

Kagome was given a room to sleep in and a place to bathe, and after a few hours, she had calmed down quite a bit. She felt lost and alone in the strange fortress, and was terrified of her next meeting with Sesshoumaru, who was turning out to be every bit as terrible as she had assumed.

She had been sleeping for awhile when she awoke to the door opening. The covers were pulled over her nose, as if hiding from Sesshoumaru. He walked quietly to the edge off the bed, and pulled the sheets down to her neck, exposing his handiwork. One side of her face was black and her eye was partially swollen shut. "I will not strike you again, Miko."

"You hurt me," Kagome whispered.

"It was intentional," Sesshoumaru replied softly as he ran the pads of his fingers over her bruise.

"Why? Why would you do that? I was only trying to help you," Kagome said. There was silence as Sesshoumaru refused to answer her question. Kagome thought about it for a moment and rolled over so her back was to him. "You wanted to hurt me."

"It was a reprimand. You were in no position to speak of my relationship with Rin," Sesshoumaru corrected. "You don't know..."

Kagome slid out of the bed and landed firmly on her feet. "You don't get to do that, Sesshoumaru! I'm not blind, you know. If Rin meant as little to you as you want me to believe, you wouldn't hit me for talking about her!"

He was facing the door when he icily replied, "Fine, Miko, my daughter is dead. I do not want your comfort or pity. Mind your own business, Girl."

The last word caught in his throat and he winced.

**Flashback  
**Big brown eyes peeked around a tree trunk at him, and then the girl bowed as she presented him with a fish on a leaf. Golden eyes looked up at her curiously; she was so thin and malnourished. She was hungry, and he knew that from the rumbling of her stomach and the look in her eyes. They reminded him of a baby raccoon he had caught trying to eat a boar he had killed.

The strange child was going without food for him.

"I don't eat human food," he said, hoping she would take the fish home and eat it. Whether or not she did, it was a waste. He wasn't lying in saying he wasn't going to eat it. "Mind your own business, Girl."  
**End Flashback**

Kagome watched Sesshoumaru blanch and then zone out completely, as if he was somewhere else. Gold eyes stared off in to nothing, and she was starting to panic when he spoke again. "I don't eat human food. Mind your own business Girl," he said.

Suddenly, Sesshoumaru found himself staring at a visibly upset Kagome, who was tugging on his hand, calling his name. What had just happened? His breathing got deeper as he looked around in alarm, wondering what had just overtaken him. Had he actually had a hallucination about Rin? He backed up against the wall and leaned his head back on it, trying to clear his mind.

The taiyoukai slid down the wall until he was crouching on the floor, and drug Kagome down by the hand that he hadn't realized he was holding. When he finally did, his fingers immediately disentangled from Kagome's and he found himself staring at the stark bruise on her face.

Sesshoumaru wondered what it was in mortal women that made them so capable of suffering to 'help' someone else. He didn't want or need their mercy and he certainly didn't need to be saved. His eyes cut into Kagome as his mind wandered. She had been bruised for him, and she went right back to her attempts to help him.

It reminded him of someone…

* * *

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	3. Inuyasha's Plan

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**Atonement**  
_By Miss Kagura  
_Chapter Three — Inuyasha's Plan

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Sesshoumaru's eyes carefully traced the forest, taking an inventory of all the living things in their vicinity. A squirrel youkai, a pair of larks, numerous insects, and…the taiyoukai froze as he found a scent that most definitely should not have been where it was. They were not yet a day back on the path to Naraku and had already encountered someone he would rather not come into contact with at all. 

Sesshoumaru turned and stared in one distinct direction. "You have been noticed. Reveal yourself."

Kagome clung to Ah-Un in frightened anticipation as leaves crunched in the forest and a figure emerged. "Kikyou? What are you doing here?" One glance into the dead miko's eyes said so much. The resentment and hate was clear, as was Kikyou's determination. What Kagome didn't know was that Inuyasha had desperately begged for Kikyou's help, but it wasn't to find the jewel shards, or to defeat Naraku, or to do anything else that would allow her to rest in peace. No, all Inuyasha wanted from Kikyou was help in retrieving Kagome.

Kikyou had realized that she had become second, and that Inuyasha would do anything to have Kagome. His plan was brilliant; it would keep Kagome away from Sesshoumaru while still allowing him to see her. One thing Inuyasha wasn't counting on? Betrayal.

Kikyou's jealous stare fixed on Kagome and Sesshoumaru found that he didn't like the idea of the dead miko intimidating Kagome. In the younger miko's defense, Kagome had yet to do anything terrible. She had been gentle and soft in a situation that might make most females vindictive and hateful. He stepped in between Kikyou and Kagome and allowed his aura to grate against both of the miko auras, providing a buffer between them. "Speak."

"Inuyasha plans to lure you to the Bone-Eater's Well by planting Shikon shards there and wait for Naraku, who you will obviously be following. That well is a gateway between this world and the one my little copy came from. If she manages to get to the other side of the well, you will never see her again. Inuyasha, however, will have free access to her," Kikyou said.

Sesshoumaru felt Kagome's aura flare out in complete anger, and then collapse around her. She sniffled, and pursed her lips as a tear rolled down one cheek. It was the rise that left him curious; it was as if her aura expanded and hit an invisible wall. Were her powers somehow sealed? He furrowed his brows at the sight of her tears and turned his attention back to Kikyou. "Leave. Even concealed, your scent disgusts me."

Kagome sunk down to the ground and hugged her legs, and waited for Sesshoumaru to bark at her to get up. She listened to Kikyou's slow steps away from them, and knew each one put Kagome farther away from home, farther away from freedom, and farther away from the man she loved. Still, as she thought about it, Kagome realized that Kikyou had gone to such lengths because she felt threatened. Kikyou didn't want Inuyasha to rescue her, because she didn't want Inuyasha to be with her. The dead miko was nothing more than a jealous woman who was willing to do anything to keep Inuyasha to herself.

"Jaken, find Inuyasha's group and inform them of what just happened," Sesshoumaru said.

The imp clearly intended to protest, but a rock was preemptively thrown at his head. He scrambled down the path and disappeared from sight, grumbling the whole way. This, of course, left the taiyoukai alone to discuss this 'gateway' Kikyou had so readily told him of. He sat under a tree a few feet away from Kagome and waited for her silently ride down the grief that was painted onto her face.

"What, exactly, is on the other side of that well?" Sesshoumaru curtly asked.

Kagome swallowed hard and took a deep breath. "I came from five hundred years in the future."

"Why did you come here?" Sesshoumaru asked in a tone that threatened violence as much as curiosity. He wouldn't have believed Kagome under normal circumstances, but the short skirt and uncorrupted love of his brother was proof she was not the product of the Sengoku Jidai. Humans were superstitious, hateful, and did not take to demons well, or baths. Kagome, however, ordinarily smelled of flowers, anxiety, the fox kit, and his hanyou brother.

"One day, I was looking for my cat in the old well house and a demon came out of it and dragged me through the well. It ripped the Shikon Jewel out of me, and then I accidentally broke it, and now I'm trying to put it all back together again," Kagome explained in one breath.

Silence settled on the tiny forest clearing, and Kagome waited for any sign from Sesshoumaru that he didn't intend to kill her. Meanwhile, Sesshoumaru studied the miko. She didn't seem even remotely malevolent or even as if she had any real plan. From what he understood, gathering jewel shards was _hardly_ her motivation for being in the wrong era. It was that particular fact that concerned him most, although to someone who wasn't privy to the information he had, it might have just seemed like young, stupid, reckless love.

"Do you know how the Bone-Eater's Well was made?" he asked Kagome. "Midoriko and my father fought as allies at that place against the dragon god Ryujin. They were unable to defeat him before he cursed them and crawled into Hell, creating the well."

The young miko thought for a moment about this new piece of knowledge. "Why would it carry me back to this time? Knowing it was created in such an evil way, it suddenly seems like…maybe I really shouldn't be here."

"Or that your presence in this world serves a purpose unknown to us at this time," Sesshoumaru added.

The taiyoukai concentrated on her aura again, and sized it up against what he had felt with Kikyou. He knew that every five hundred years, a special miko is born. Kikyou had come along five hundred years after Midoriko, and Kagome five hundred years after that. Could she be the one? He inwardly cringed at the idea that the inexperienced, weak girl crumpled up on the ground in tears might be the most powerful human the world would see for centuries.

"What is your connection to Kikyou? She called you her 'copy,'" Sesshoumaru asked.

Kagome rehashed the painful ordeal of losing a part of her soul to Kikyou, and the taiyoukai found in it the proof that Kagome was a Great Miko, as he suspected. "…because I'm her reincarnation…" she sobbed, revealing far more about her frustration with Kikyou than she ever would have in a normal conversation.

Of course, this changed everything. Kagome was no longer his brother's skittish female; she was extremely powerful and if other youkai ever learned her identity as a Great Miko, she would be hunted and killed. As she was, Kagome was practically a sitting duck, incapable of thwarting off an attack by multiple or strong youkai on her own. Taiyoukai, he knew, were born with their powers under a natural seal that would break when pushed too much. It was possible that all Kagome needed to unleash her true power was a situation that demanded she do so.

Nothing else was said, and Kagome soon fell asleep under the taiyoukai's watch, only to awaken halfway through the night. Her eyes fluttered open as the grief that had stirred her from sleep crawled deeper into her consciousness. She couldn't remember what she had dreamt about, but for some reason, she just felt like crying. Kagome rolled over and looked up to the moon, which shone brightly in the night sky. When she looked over to Sesshoumaru, the source of her sadness became clear.

Sesshoumaru sat on the ground with his back against a tree, staring up at the stars. Thinking that no one else could see it, Sesshoumaru allowed the suffering that haunted him during the day to wreak havoc on his soul during the night, when he should have been watching Rin sleep. A thousand memories played over in his head, and they were never enough. In his mind, Rin still picked flowers, scampering after him with a smile and a light heart. Ironically, the thing he missed most was the thing that had always annoyed him the most.

For the millionth time, Sesshoumaru remembered the way she'd run full speed into his legs and hug them.

Kagome held her breath, so sure that what she was witnessing was just a dream, and if not, something so forbidden she felt wrong for watching it. The taiyoukai was clearly in such intense pain that it had affected her, and as she watched him take another trip down memory lane, Kagome saw something no one else ever had. She forced her eyes closed and held them shut again as tears lined his eyes, making them glisten in the moonlight. If he shed tears in that moment, Kagome didn't want to see them. Neither did she want to deprive Sesshoumaru of the right to grieve for the one he lost, so she remained silent, willing herself not to react to the intense, tangible sorrow in the air.

For hours Kagome lay there, lost in the pain of someone she found cold and terrible only a day before. Right then, however, she felt his pain as it rose and fell with each memory of the little girl. Finally, all of the emotion culminated to a point that was almost like a climax of misery, and the miko choked.

Instantly, it all ended and Sesshoumaru abruptly stood up and drew Tokijin. "Stay here, Kagome. Do not leave."

"Where are you going?" she asked.

Sesshoumaru didn't answer her, but the sword in his hand said enough to her. When the light sound of his steps faded, Kagome crawled over to Ah-Un and found herself feeling more alone than she ever had. The night as dark and cold, and she was afraid to attract attention to herself by starting a fire, so Kagome just climbed into her sleeping bag and waited for Sesshoumaru to return.

* * *

Meanwhile, Jaken had arrived at the village where Inuyasha often stayed after a rather uncomfortable trip with an eagle youkai who happened to owe him a favor. Dropped from high above, he hit the ground with a thud and grumbled as he stood up and followed Inuyasha's scent to Kaede's hut. 

Jaken was just about to step through the door when a very large sword came swinging through the screen at him. "Jaken, what the hell are you doing here?" Inuyasha barked.

Jaken swung his Staff of Two heads at Inuyasha. "Sesshoumaru-sama has asked that I inform you that he has learned of your plans to rescue the miko."

The imp saw an immediate transformation in Inuyasha from fiery hanyou to sad puppy. His ears flattened on his head, which bowed down in defeat. All at once, the hope Inuyasha had built up vanished and he seemed lost and downtrodden. Jaken looked around the room, first at the kit, who choked back tears, and then to the slayer who let them fall. The monk seemed disappointed as well as the old priestess.

Even if Kagome was a human and a miko on top of that, Jaken realized he had no real ill will toward her. She cooked for them both and often engaged in conversation with him, something he hadn't been able to do with anyone other than Rin in ages. In fact, Jaken might have even considered her an ally, although he'd never admit to such a thing. The only proof of his loyalty to the miko was the anger he found when he saw the victory in Kikyou's eyes.

Before Jaken even knew what he was doing, one green finger wiped that victory off Kikyou's face as he pointed at her. "The dead miko came to our camp and told Sesshoumaru-sama everything about the well and your plot because she doesn't want Kagome to be rescued!" Once his sense of pride caught up with him, he tried to cover up his show of loyalty. "Her pointless crying slows Sesshoumaru-sama down!"

Jaken fisted his hands and walked back out of the hut, stopping only when he realized the fox kit standing at the top of the steps that lead into Kaede's hut. Shippou scrambled after him and ran in front of him. He reached into his hakama and pulled out a piece of folded up paper. "Will you give this to Kagome? It's not from Inuyasha."

"I am the servant of the great Sesshoumaru-sama, not some messenger," Jaken squawked as he took the message and stomped away in his indignant fury.

Shippou's fur was all standing up when he re-entered the hut, which was totally silent. He pointed at Kikyou and growled in a deeper octave than anyone would have expected from him. "Why did you bring her here, Inuyasha? We all told you we didn't trust her! She hurt Kagome-chan before!"

Miroku carefully watched the hanyou's sad eyes begin to burn with anger. "You do not belong in this world, Kikyou. You have no right to act to penalize Kagome or Inuyasha for their desire to be together." He nervously fiddled with his prayer beads as he assessed the situation. He knew he was supposed to be the wise one, the one slowest to anger and quickest to wisdom. "However, I understand that you are bitter and sad, as anyone would be in your station. This is why I think that you should leave us, and make efforts not to cross paths with Kagome unless you desire to be removed from the world of the living again."

Sango reinforced Miroku in a voice more gentle than the monk expected. "When you betrayed Kagome, you betrayed us all."

"If you're Kagome's enemy, you're our enemy too!" Shippou interjected.

Inuyasha sniffed the air, hoping the traitor in his midst was Naraku in disguise, since it would seem so much less heinous that way. He wasn't stupid; he knew Kikyou had given conflicting opinion on her feelings for him to other people. She loved him one day, she no longer did so the next day, and when it was convenient, the cycle would start all over again. This night though, Inuyasha knew for sure; Kikyou loved him. He had hurt Kagome to be with Kikyou, and realized that Kikyou had hurt Kagome to be with him. Sometimes he wondered why Kagome even bothered with him, considering how much pain he brought her, but the answer always came down to her love for him.

"Leave," Inuyasha finally said, unwilling to make eye contact. He was neither able to deny his love for her nor give it to her completely. In the end, Kikyou was dead. Her mouth tasted of hell and dirt, and the few times he had held her, it was like Death had crawled under his skin and burrowed into his belly.

The hanyou's broken heart retold the story of a miko that he fell for over and over. It begged him to avoid Kikyou, reminding him of a time when the demon blood he had grown so proud of was a mark of shame in her eyes. Then, all the doubt was washed away by days that had been spent dreaming of living a happy, normal human life. Visions of love, peace, and children swirled through his soul and then disappeared like the rare foreign wind that teased his nose with things he did not truly understand.

Then, as it always did, his heart resonated with the same love that had driven them to such a tragic end in the first place. He raced through the door and across the village to the woods where he sensed Kikyou's Shinidamachu. "Kikyou, wait!"

Dull, impassive eyes met with his. "You truly desire her more than me?"

"It doesn't matter, does it?" Inuyasha asked. "There's no happy ending for us, Kikyou. When Naraku is dead, and the jewel is gone, it won't change anything."

"I made a wish on the jewel," Kikyou abruptly interrupted. "That is why it disappeared from our world with my death."

Inuyasha faltered. Kikyou had made a wish and the jewel disappeared? How had to come to Kagome then, and, more importantly, why? "What did you wish, Kikyou?"

"The wounds Naraku had dealt to me were fatal, which I knew as I aimed that arrow at your heart. Even believing you had betrayed me…it didn't change my feelings," Kikyou softly said. "I wished that in the next lifetime, I would find you and love you as I did at that moment."

"Kikyou," Inuyasha said as he pulled her into his arms against the advisement of all of his wisdom and most of his senses, which recoiled in disgust at the scent of death. "I'm sorry."

Kikyou let her clay body lean against the hanyou, enjoying his warmth against the chill of death. "My mind is so corrupted by my own existence. I do selfish things that I never would have done in life. My heart does not understand that you and I have no future."

The miko let go of Inuyasha and took several slow steps back, thinking about the love they would never make, the children she would never give birth to, and the life that had slipped through their fingers at Goshinboku. She disappeared into the night without another word.

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	4. Momentum

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**Atonement**  
_By Miss Kagura  
_Chapter Four — Momentum

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Sesshoumaru returned to camp shortly after Jaken did and said nothing. His eyes seemed to blank to Kagome. They weren't apathetic or cold as they had been at their first meeting, nor were they warm or even aware. 

Several times, she noticed that he seemed to be looking for something, but to her knowledge, there was nothing to be seen. When her bored eyes were drawn to his twitching hand, he noticed immediately and balled it into a fist. What he could not mask, however, was what Kagome could sense. She didn't know what it was, but something was terribly amiss about Sesshoumaru. He was distant and didn't seem to be paying attention at all.

Even stranger, every now and then, he would glance at her, as if lost in thought.

Around noon, Jaken pointed to the hand that kept fisting and screeched, "Sesshoumaru-sama! You are bleeding!"

Sesshoumaru held the hand up and found a nosy girl staring at it. Kagome pushed the sleeve up farther and farther, searching for the wound, and when she got to the top of his arm, it became apparent it was Sesshoumaru's shoulder. "May I take care of that? I treat Inuyasha's wounds all the time."

The taiyoukai slumped down next to a tree and watched as Kagome knelt beside him. "You know, in my time, we have a lot of medicines that can help with pain, but I think you'd have to have as much as an elephant for it to work," she nervously joked. Careful hands eased his armor off, and then his haori. When the trademark silk garment fell to the ground with a rustle, Kagome gasped at the gaping wound on Sesshoumaru's shoulder. It had soaking into the thin haori he wore underneath his clothes, so with a few snips, she peeled it off the wound.

Sesshoumaru winced as a cotton swab covered in antiseptic touched the open wound. "Tell me about your time," he growled through his teeth, seeking distraction.

Kagome put pressure on the swab, pressing it into the gaping hole. "Well, humans think demons aren't real. There have been a lot of technological advancements. Man walked on the moon before I was born. Oh, and we have all these ways to see inside the body."

"So does this Sesshoumaru," he said, admiring his claws.

"Did you just make a joke? I think the Bone-Eater's Well sent me to some creepy alternate past where you have a sense of humor," Kagome laughed.

When she looked up, there was an unmistakable glimmer of lust in his eyes. Kagome gasped, and as soon as he knew she had noticed, a bloody hand wrapped around her waist and pulled Kagome right into his lap. "Sesshoumaru? W-What's happening? If this is about last night, I didn't mean to…to feel you."

A wicked smirk unveiled a sharp fang as he whispered in the miko's ear. "Perhaps this Sesshoumaru wishes to feel you from the inside."

The toad screamed. Kagome screamed. Sesshoumaru remained still, not really caring what they thought. Lust was what it was, all formalities aside. He licked his lips, leaned over, and claimed Kagome's lips in a bruising, powerful kiss. Her eyes flew open in shock and she tried to push him off her, letting out a short scream. She went limp when something moved in the corner of her eye.

Sesshoumaru leaned forward, pushing Kagome onto her back as he invaded her mouth with his tongue, propped up on his arm. He pinned her down with his legs and whispered in her ear. "You taste like Heaven, Miko."

"Imposter," Kagome whispered as she turned her head away.

Something white streaked by, stopped behind Sesshoumaru, and held the Tokijin to the neck of the other 'Sesshoumaru.' Kagome shuddered. The person leading them all day, who she had told about her time, and now very nearly stripped, wasn't Sesshoumaru at all!

The man on top of Kagome felt the sharp blade pushing into his flesh and suddenly changed into Naraku. The real Sesshoumaru was covered in blood and looked more agitated than Kagome had ever seen him. One side of his lips curled into a snarl and Tokijin swept through the air. "Dragon Strike!"

Naraku's body disintegrated, turned to powder and fell on Kagome, who remained petrified on the ground.

"My Lord! That imposter did not fool me," Jaken immediately squawked.

Sesshoumaru stood over Kagome. "Silence, Jaken." One of his black boots pushed her skirt down where it had obviously been hiked up by the grabby Naraku. "I wasn't aware Naraku had such an affinity for you. In fact, I have heard no reports of him engaging in any form of sexual behavior."

Kagome sat up, and began to pick leaves out of her hair. "Where have you been?"

"Searching for Naraku's heart," Sesshoumaru curtly replied. Was she changing the subject? She was. Sesshoumaru didn't know if it was due to her nerves or the fact that she knew the answer to his question. Either way, he had to know. "Again, do you know why Naraku was interested in engaging in such disgusting behavior?"

Kagome stood up and wiped her lips off. "I look like _her._ I smell like _her_. I am a miko, like _her._"

The corner of the taiyoukai's lips twitched, threatening a smile. "You are more concerned that you were mistaken for the dead priestess than the fact Naraku just forced himself on you. What a bizarre complex you have, Miko."

In a moment of brazen honestly, Kagome crossed her arms, forgot he might kill her, and struck back. "You're one to talk."

Under the trees stood a taiyoukai and a miko, dwarfed by the shadows of those that preceded them, Kikyou and the Inu No Taisho. The miko was indignant; the Inu was impassive. The forest whispered to them, recounting tales of greatness of a Great Dog Demon and the strength of the miko who captured Inuyasha's heart. It teased each of them with the things they thought they could never earn. A sudden, cold gust of wind told of the heart of a hanyou that the miko could not win and greatness the taiyoukai could never seize.

Their eyes locked in a moment of unsullied and consummate honesty. His eyes silently asked her a question he wouldn't dare utter. _What would you give up to surpass Kikyou? A brother? A weapon? An arm?_ There were things Kagome would be willing to do to crawl out from under Kikyou's shadow, and as she considered her own boundaries, a loud squawk ripped through her ears.

"How dare you talk to Sesshoumaru-sama like in such a disrespectful manner?" Jaken croaked.

Kagome quickly looked away and apologized. Again, the lip twitched, this time pushing back into a rare, cruel smirk. Sesshoumaru looked up to the moon, and let his eyes dart around to hers. It disappeared nearly instantly, and she wasn't even sure she had seen it.

Then, she gasped and clapped her hand over her mouth. "I told Naraku about the Bone-Eater's Well!"

Sesshoumaru sighed. "Choose."

"What?" Kagome shrieked, hoping he wasn't asking her to do what she thought he was asking her to do.

"I am going to destroy the well. Unless you wish to see Naraku ravage your era as well, I suggest you not try to convince me otherwise," Sesshoumaru said as the cold tone returned to his voice. "You may remain in this world with me or in yours."

Kagome grasped her stomach and started to hyperventilate. "I think I'm going to be sick. You can't do this, please! He can't use it!"

"You cannot guarantee that. The catastrophic result of having him use the well are far greater than the personal loss you will experience by not being able to use it," Sesshoumaru said to Kagome, who seemingly just crumbled onto the ground. "Jaken, fetch Ah-Un."

When the imp stumbled away, Kagome made a rather fruitless attempt to think clearly. "I can't choose! I don't know what the right choice is! I've been thinking about this for years, what makes you think you can just throw this decision on me right now?"

"You already know what the wrong choice is," Sesshoumaru said.

"I do?" Kagome asked.

Sesshoumaru looked down to meet Kagome's eyes and spoke to her in a tone that he was once reserved for Rin. "Are you blind, Kagome? You wear the same face, carry the same scent, live the same life, make the same choices, and love the same male."

Blue eyes seemingly opened for the first time as Kagome trembled. "I've been living my past life over again. All this time…I've been living Kikyou's life! I sleep in her hut! I take care of her village! I shoot a bow because she did!" she yelled between hard sobs as the world seemingly unraveled around her. "But…Inuyasha. I love Inuyasha, right? What if it's all a lie, and I'm just doing it because I did it in my past life? What if everything has been a lie?"

Sesshoumaru neither encouraged her nor offered her any comfort. "There is no reason for you continue on this course. I hardly see a reason to believe walking the path you wish is somehow worse than traveling on one you know is wrong."

* * *

That night, Kagome made her final journey to the Bone-Eater's Well. The letter she clutched to her chest was soaked in tears and anguish, a mere fifteen hundred and thirty-three words to sever the part of her that would kill her if left intact. She stood at the edge of the well and looked down, and then let the letter drop into a bright blue void. 

_Goodbye Mama.  
Goodbye Gramps.  
Goodbye Souta.  
_

Sesshoumaru drew Tokijin and walked toward the well, but the rattle of an upset, glowing Tenseiga cause him to switch swords. "Kagome, get in the well."

"WHAT?" Kagome asked.

Before she knew what was happening, a wooden staff hooked behind her knees and pushed them out, making her tumble backward. As Kagome plummeted toward the magical gateway, she saw a bright light and heard the roar of Sesshoumaru's attack. For a split second, Kagome thought the well was exploding, but she was simply held completely still in the well shaft. She looked up and saw Tenseiga spinning above the well, having abandoned its owner. Then, Kagome felt a surge of energy shoot through her body, head to toe, and then from her feet into the bottom of the well.

A bright blue beam of light pierced the dark night sky and seemed to reach toward the stars. Kagome seemingly hovered up out of the well, until she was suspended in the air above it. She felt overwhelmed, out of control, and as if the power pouring into her would kill her or make her burst. Kagome put her hands over her ears, curled up in a ball, and let it go.

A swift kick to Jaken's backside sent him flying out of the way as the miko seemingly exploded in purification energy. It expanded quickly in all directions in what would have killed any normal youkai in the area. Even the taiyoukai decided not to weather the storm within the expanding bubble of Kagome's power. It stopped at the edge of the clearing, but remained strong, forming a force field around the area that contained the Bone-Eater's Well moments before.

Sesshoumaru touched the barrier; it stung. He put his hand through, then an arm, and then stepped through it completely. His boots cracked the thin sheet of glass created by melting and cooling the ground quickly as he walked to the center of the bubble, where a very unconscious miko hovered above the ground. Blood dripped from her nose, a sign of the damage the mass discharge of power had wreaked on her body. Her aura swirled dangerously; she was unbound, unsealed, and unleashed.

"Kagome," Sesshoumaru said.

She didn't move. After being poked, nudged, shoved, and called a few other things the taiyoukai was sure would have gotten her attention, Kagome still dangled above the ground.

Within minutes, Inuyasha came from the village, investigating the strange light he had seen. He took one look at Sesshoumaru standing in front of Kagome, smelled her blood, and prepared to charge into the bubble. His face made hard contact with a solid surface; he couldn't pass. Clawed hands scratched at the surface of the force field, but to no avail. "How did my asshole brother get through?" Inuyasha yelled at Jaken.

"He walked through, of course!" Jaken yelled equally loudly.

The hanyou felt dread rise in him. "Why can't I get through?"

Jaken thought for a moment. "It is Kagome's power. There is only one reason you would be unable to pass a miko's barrier if Sesshoumaru-sama can."

"Kagome doesn't want me near her," Inuyasha said with a shudder as he felt the ice-cold knife of rejection skewer his heart whole. Of all the people he had ever imagined might shut him out someday, he had never expected it from her. He snarled and growled at his brother; what had Sesshoumaru done to poison her against him? Told her lies? Told her the truth? Inuyasha wondered if his brother knew how deeply he had been cut, and if Sesshoumaru cared.

There stood Sesshoumaru, just a foot away from the girl that wouldn't let him get near.

The hanyou felt his future begin to slip through his fingers like sand and resolved to kill his brother for taking the one woman who ever loved him as he truly was. Or had that been the deal all along? Kagome had been taken from him because he killed Rin; he realized the rejection he felt was the literal translation of his brother helping the miko learn she was always too good for him to start with.

"Sesshoumaru, you bastard, stop being a coward and come fight me! What did you tell Kagome?" he growled.

In less than a second, Sesshoumaru stood just on the other side of the barrier. "You let that dead woman drive her to the point she would give up anything to crawl out of her shadow. You have no one to blame but yourself."

The barrier suddenly dropped and Kagome fell to the ground. Inuyasha felt some urge to run to her side, but his feet wouldn't move. He couldn't bear to look into her eyes and see the change in her heart in them. He had been severed from her life and he couldn't face it.

Kagome sat up and wiped her nose. When she looked up, she could have sworn she saw Inuyasha zip past, although she dismissed the idea when she realized the hanyou never left without a fight. "What happened?" she asked.

"Your powers were sealed in the well," Sesshoumaru calmly explained.

She stood up and looked at the mess she had made of the area. "How did you know? I mean, I didn't even know they were sealed, much less where, or how."

"Midoriko overestimated her powers to the point of shoving her soul out of her body. It suggests that she lost a sizeable amount of her spiritual strength," Sesshoumaru said. "Her next two incarnations, you and the clay priestess, were comparatively weak. That means that whatever happened to her, carried on to both of you. Your sealed up power opened the gateway between your time and this one. It is quite simple."

Kagome blinked slowly and shook her head. "No, it really isn't."

The taiyoukai shrugged and noticed the miko looked slightly different. Her hair seemed blacker and shinier, her eyes a brighter shade of blue and her cheeks a bit rosier. The subtle differences probably preceded the physical and spiritual superiority which would inevitably follow with proper training.

"It was a test! The miko could only unseal her true power by choosing to serve her purpose in this world," Jaken said.

Kagome's jaw dropped. "Hey, that's a little out of hand for a test, don't you think? I didn't even get to study!" She scrambled to the edge of the clearing to catch up with the youkai. She climbed onto Ah-Un and leaned her head on one of its heads. "You guys won't ever give me stupid tests, will you?" she asked. Ah grunted in reply and Un nuzzled her cheek; it was a ridiculous sight and she knew it. She just didn't care anymore.

There would be no more stress over Inuyasha, tests, school, her family, her future, he friends on the other side of the well, or Kikyou. She had given it all up, and it hurt like nothing she had imagined. However, she felt so free and her heart felt light for the first time since she had fallen down the well.

When the first drops of a night thunderstorm started to fall, they made camp at the mouth of a cave, and Sesshoumaru found himself a little unnerved when Kagome not only left the cave, but did so without her umbrella. She stood under the full moon in pouring rain, letting it wash away all the emotional baggage she had been carrying for so long. The taiyoukai watched her cry, and then laugh, and then dance alone in the rain.

Back in the cave, a dog sat with his head tilted to one side like a confused puppy.

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Special thanks to Yuki-hime, llebreknit, Welshteen, Kimarya, TAJE, sayuri-girl, LadySafire, 43InuAsha, BlazingMidnightRain, Superstar, kagome past and present, HowCanYouWalkAwayWhileIAmCrying, darknessofmyheart, Amadoni, flirtymiyu, Kitsune Diva, and Kagome357! You guys are awesome!


	5. Infidelity

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**Atonement  
**_By Miss Kagura  
_Chapter Five — Fidelity

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Kagome's hands found a crevice and she gripped it, and then pulled herself up onto the rock she had spotted from their camp down below. She had half-expected to wake up feeling like a superhero, but was as groggy and cranky as ever that morning. So, deciding that she no longer wished to be groggy (Kikyou always seemed half-asleep…or was it dead? She didn't care anymore), she had climbed up the short face of the cliff and stood on the ledge, watching the sun rise over a sparkling lake. A quick glance at camp confirmed that the others were asleep and shouldn't have been able to see her, except for Ah, who wasn't going to tell on her anyway. 

She lifted one leg and removed the shoe and sock, and then the other. Her arms crossed over her abdomen, grabbed her shirt, and pulled it over her head. Her skirt followed, and as Kagome reached behind her to unhook her bra, she looked over at the sleeping camp again. Finally, she hooked her thumbs in the sides of her panties and pushed them down.

A shockingly cold gust of wind hit her, and she shivered as pink nipples puckered. "How strange," she said.

Down below, the taiyoukai she believed to be asleep watched her through narrow eyes. The wind almost made him chuckle. "Kagura," he whispered. It blew even stronger and he saw Kagome run her fingers through her hair to keep it straight as the wind abused her nude form. The risqué nature of the act alone made it admirable; the fact that the rising sun reflected off her skin made it almost sinfully enjoyable to watch.

As a general rule, female youkai were not particularly curvy. It had never bothered Sesshoumaru before; although he was sure it would in the future. Copulation was often bone-to-bone as youkai rutted out their heat with females with nothing soft to grab. Flat-chested, flat-stomached, and lanky, some certainly had pretty faces, most definitely prettier than the miko's, but what they lacked were the soft parts of her body that demanded his attention as he stared at Kagome.

"We aren't supposed to be watching, are we?" Jaken asked, remaining still other than his mouth.

"Dishonorable toad, human women are ugly." Sesshoumaru halfheartedly said, making Jaken close his eyes tightly.

Ugly, but oh-so-curvy.

Kagome fidgeted and Sesshoumaru got a look at her back. Neck, shoulders, breasts, tummy, hips, buttocks, thighs, calves…even her ankles bewitched him with their intricate little curves! He closed his eyes and refused to give into her wicked body, forcing himself into a state of sleep.

Then, she leapt toward the water more than ten meters below. "Cannonball!" she shouted before she could stop herself.

The world disappeared as she slipped under the water, and then kicked her way back up to the surface. Two black boots were the first thing she saw as she wiped water from her eyes. Sesshoumaru was soaked, from head to toe, and had an extremely perturbed expression. Kagome swam to the edge and held onto a rock to hide her obvious nudity. "Sesshoumaru, you're up early."

"I heard someone shout something about a cannonball. I see no cannonball," Sesshoumaru replied.

"Sorry, umm…figure of speech," Kagome said in apology. She swam toward the ledge, and hoped Sesshoumaru would be kind enough to let her retrieve her clothes without a fuss.

"Put your clothes on, vile woman," Sesshoumaru said. He took one quick glance at her curvaceous back as she swam away. "Vile, disgusting, awful woman," he reinforced. He only stopped when he saw her feet make a brief appearance as Kagome dove under the water, more content to not breathe than listen to Sesshoumaru rant about her humanity.

They traveled westward that day, and as the sun set, Kagome began to recognize the area around Toutousai's Mountain. When they got to the base of the mountain, Kagome slid of Ah-Un. "I stay here, right? It's not safe for humans."

"It is unsafe for normal humans," Sesshoumaru replied, waving a hand for her to get back on the dragon, which she did.

The journey up the mountain was slow, and when the sulfuric air started to burn her throat, she understood why. Kagome had expected to just be able to take in the contaminated air, but it was wreaking havoc on her. Within minutes, she was wheezing and coughing. "Sesshoumaru, I can't…" Kagome put a hand over her chest and struggled to draw in breath. "I can't breathe!"

"Never let anything poisonous enter your body. Better to prevent it than try to fight once you are weakened," Sesshoumaru said, remembering a similar trip he had taken up the mountain centuries before. They had been his father's words as he led a choking silver-haired boy up the mountain.

Kagome pushed all the deadly gas out of her lungs and closed her eyes. It took all of her concentration and most of her determination, but she forced her powers to activate as she drew in a deep breath through her nose. It entered her lungs, clean, fresh, and charged with her power. Kagome repeated the process, and after a few breaths, she had purged her body of the noxious fumes. She would have been proud of herself if all of her concentration wasn't fixed on the simple process of respiration.

The purification energy was absorbed into her bloodstream, which fed every cell of her body. She held on to the dragon tightly, pushing her lungs out and in, and then repeated it, unable to think of anything else, lest she inhale the increasingly toxic volcanic air.

She barely noticed when they stopped at Toutousai's home and Sesshoumaru went in to talk to the old man.

Toutousai was hammering away at a hot piece of metal when Sesshoumaru approached him. He looked up and saw the miko who clutched the dragon for dear life as she focused on breathing. "Her presence in your life is completely unnecessary. She is miko; you are taiyoukai."

"I have my reasons," Sesshoumaru said.

Toutousai continued hammering, and then threw the metal back into the fire. "Those reasons wouldn't happen to be neck, shoulders, breasts, tummy, hips, buttocks, thighs, and calves, would they?"

Amber eyes flew open in complete rage, and a hand that reached for Toutousai's neck stopped just short.

"Before you decide to kill me for knowing, ask yourself how I found out," he added.

Sesshoumaru's hand felt to his hip, where Tenseiga rested at his side. Tenseiga reported to Toutousai on all matters related to his heart, from the moment it came alive in his hands over Rin's corpse to the sense of loss he felt when Kagura died. If Toutousai knew about his enjoyment of Kagome, it was because the pang it brought ran far deeper than he thought.

The taiyoukai's lips formed a scowl. "She is here to spite that miserable half-breed."

"Someday, neither of you will have anything left for the other one to steal, and maybe then you'll start acting like brothers," Toutousai said.

Toutousai knew he was watching to taiyoukai choose his own path in life. He could send the miko back to Inuyasha, or he could keep her and eventually go against everything Sesshoumaru ever wanted to be. The best solution would have been to send Kagome back to the hanyou, but Sesshoumaru was stubborn. He would destroy his brother and his own goals for the sake of being cruel. "You are making a mistake, Sesshoumaru," He warned, although even Toutousai knew that by the time Sesshoumaru committed the very sin he hated most that he would never regret it.

Such was love.

"Her chi is too strong for ordinary human weapons," Sesshoumaru said.

He took the metal out of the fire and started hammering on it again. "I don't make ordinary weapons. Bring her. Send the toad away; he has a big mouth."

Kagome stumbled dumbly into Toutousai's house, although the process of altered aspiration had become slightly easier. Jaken was halfway down the mountain on an urgent errand when Kagome finally relaxed. "What's going on?"

Toutousai examined the metal and began hammering again. "I am making you a weapon. However, in order for it to truly be yours, I require something from your body."

Blue eyes bugged out, and for a moment, Sesshoumaru would have sworn they had grown larger than Toutousai's. "My teeth don't grow back like that! You can't have any of my teeth!"

"The rib closest to your heart will channel the most chi and react more readily to your desires. However, that will leave your heart somewhat vulnerable," Toutousai explained.

Kagome took a deep breath; was there a real reason to say 'no?' It wasn't like she could un-make the decision of the previous night, and there was no reason to not take a weapon from Toutousai, no matter how squeamish she was about what was being asked of her. "I don't like blood, or pain, or, you know, missing body parts that help keep me from dying."

"A proper weapon will do far more than a bone in keeping you alive, Miko. Stop acting like a child and prepare yourself," Sesshoumaru said.

With that, Kagome closed her mouth and sat on the old wooden table Sesshoumaru pointed to. Toutousai handed her a cup of ominous purple liquid, which she turned up and drank, almost driven to cursing by the sour taste. Her face puckered up, her lips, her cheeks, her forehead, and her nose all contorted as the youkai watched, wondering if they had given the miko too much. Kagome suddenly felt her body go numb as something occurred to her. "Oh Kami, to take out my rib, you're going to see me topless!" she screamed.

Sesshoumaru glared down at her. "I have not sunken so low as to get pleasure from seeing a vile human nude," His arm forced her flat on the table and then methodically pulled the shirt off. She was still covering her face, so he rolled her over and unhooked the bra. He placed a large, clawed hand in between her breasts, detecting the exact location of her racing heart. Kagome shuddered as two of his fingers made contact with her back, snapping the rib free. She put her hands down and watched the very careful taiyoukai make two tiny swipes with the claw of his index finger. Kagome watched as he slowly maneuvered the long, curved bone from the tiniest wound, and then inspected it.

Kagome took one look at the bloody rib, crossed her eyes, and passed out.

When Kagome finally woke up again, she had drool dripping down one side of her face as she slept in the grass at the foot of Toutousai's Mountain. Her eyes opened completely and she sat up, wincing as pain shot through her side. Judging from the silence, Jaken was still gone, so she simply lay back down. "Sesshoumaru, are you there?"

"Hn," was the only response she got.

She stared up at the stars and felt her nerves twist into a knot as a familiar sense of melancholy settled on her. "Why does the night make you so sad?" she asked.

"You have a remarkable sense of empathy," He said, ignoring her question.

Amber eyes watched the sky, begrudging the divine gravity that always came with the night. Only the billions of stars in the sky could make him feel so insignificant, and those were the times that the truth hurt the most. During the day, Rin was his dead tag-along orphan, but under the stars, he was allowed to be small. He was allowed to think about how the twinkle in Rin's eyes made him want to smile from time to time. The moon and the stars never cared that he was taiyoukai and she was human; they sparkled just the same as they would had she been his child.

They witnessed it all.

They were there the first time he ever stayed up to watch her sleep.  
They were there when she trusted him enough to sleep in his lap.  
They were there when he allowed it.  
They were there the nights she cried for him even while sleeping.  
They were there the night he rocked her to sleep.  
They were there when he sewed her body back together and cradled her corpse.

Sesshoumaru closed his eyes and leaned his head against the tree his back was pressed against. Suddenly, his skin started to sting, as if the air had suddenly been charged.

"Sesshoumaru, how did you know how to take my bra off?" Kagome growled.

"I do not recall telling you to take your clothes off in front of me this morning," Sesshoumaru replied.

Kagome sighed felt her cheeks turn red again. "Well, at least you think I'm a vile, disgusting human. I never thought that would be a comfort. Otherwise, I'd have to yell at you for watching like a pervert."

"Perhaps you should," Sesshoumaru said.

Kagome let out a ragged breath and mentally replayed what she had just heard. She should yell at him...because he had been watching? "Kami, you did watch me. Why would you do that?" she softly whispered.

Her delicious curves danced through his head, but the taiyoukai didn't acknowledge them.

"And for that matter, why are you telling me?" she yelled, as if he had just told her he needed another rib. "I was content not knowing."

Sesshoumaru walked over to the miko and stood over her, staring down at her face as she lay still in the grass. "I saw Naraku kiss you in my form."

"I know. We've talked about it," Kagome replied.

"I also saw the way your jaw and lips moved. You kissed him back," Sesshoumaru harshly accused, "Then you let 'me,' push you into a submissive position, pin you in between my legs, and taste your mouth."

Kagome sat up, grasping her aching chest. "That's none of your business," she defensively hissed, now more infuriated than embarrassed. "That doesn't give you the right to watch me while I'm naked. I didn't even think you could see me from camp!"

The stars witnessed everything.

They saw the lust simmer in the eyes of the one who promised he'd always hate humans.  
They saw the pure little miko defend her lust with her dignity.  
They saw his eyes fall to her heaving chest.  
They saw her stand up and unapologetically challenge him with her eyes.  
They saw his hand strike her for the second time.  
They saw her hit him back.

Sesshoumaru grabbed her and pulled her in, as if he was going to slap her again, but forcefully seized her lips instead. His hand pressed into the arching back of the miko, who kissed him back, lips calming his anger and raising the lust pumping through his veins.

Kagome cried out in agony and held her side. Before she could react, a single claw injected a miniscule amount of poison into her, numbing the wound immediately. She turned her head and moaned as she felt a trail of kisses, licks, and nips along the curve of her neck. "I-I don't love you," she whispered.

"Good," Sesshoumaru growled in one ear as his claws danced across the various forms of fabric that concealed the girl's delicious cambering form. Then, he hooked his fingers in the front of her shirt and pulled it down, along with her bra, continuing downward until it brushed against the curious patch of black hair between her legs. Her shredded clothing fell in a pile at her feet.

Kagome looked delicious enough to eat, although Sesshoumaru realized that would leave him with nothing to fuck.

Sesshoumaru abruptly let go of the weak-kneed girl, who fell to the ground. "Don't move," he said as his armor started hit the ground, followed by the rustle of silk and the clatter of precious swords discarded like trash in the heated moment. Somewhere in the back of Sesshoumaru's mind, he wondered if the curve of Tessaiga subconsciously attracted him, seeming so much sexier than Tenseiga's flat, irritating form.

Wearing nothing but his hakama, Sesshoumaru sat down and pulled Kagome into his lap. Her arms clung tightly to him as she swiveled one leg to completely straddle him.

Kagome's friends from the Modern Era wouldn't have judged her decision, but she knew Sango would probably have a fit if she knew Kagome was going to do something out of lust. She was a miko, and she had been brought back in time for a purpose. Until that purpose was fulfilled, Kagome knew love might not be an option. They were adults, and Kagome knew she didn't need to become 'emotionally ready' to handle a casual sexual encounter with Sesshoumaru. There was no getting ready for such a thing.

When Sesshoumaru turned his head down and gently tugged on her left nipple with his teeth, Kagome moaned and did something she had read about in magazines back home. Her tongue traced the outline of his sensitive, pointed ears; she sucked on the lobe, drawing blood into it, and then nipped it. The taiyoukai froze, looked up at her with shocked eyes, and then licked his lips. "Was that wrong? Did I do something wrong?" she squeaked.

He twisted his head and presented the other ear to her, although this time, he rewarded her attention by stroking her in a place she never could name without blushing. She felt him shift then as he shed his hakama. He didn't move, but looked into her eyes with the closest thing Sesshoumaru ever had to a begging expression.

Sesshoumaru felt her slide onto him; her tiny nails dug into his shoulders. It was faster than he had imagined, and the scent of virgin blood assaulted his nose as the miko let out a painful gasp. She froze as the weight of what she had done struck her like a ton of bricks. Kagome's forehead fell to his shoulder and warm tears rolled down Sesshoumaru's shoulder.

Her virginity, her purity, the last and most precious thing she owned had been surrendered in a moment of lust. For what? To scratch an itch they'd both be too embarrassed to admit to having? What would she tell the man she would eventually fall in love with? 'Sorry, I ran into a hot bastard and just had to sleep with him?' She had been betrayed by Inuyasha, Kikyou, Sesshoumaru, and now herself.

Sesshoumaru was just as disappointed in himself as Kagome was. He wanted to believe that he had logical reasons for having just claimed the virginity of a girl that he shouldn't have been anywhere near in the first place. He wanted to say to himself that he only did it because it would crush Inuyasha, but his brother seemed like a distant memory in the hazy lust that clouded his mind only moments before.

As Sesshoumaru felt her hot teardrops run over his heart, and down to where their bodies still joined, he rubbed her back with his hand. He never would have done this for her regularly, but since he had about twenty centimeters or so of his body inside of hers, the fact that he usually would have avoided physical contact was a very, very moot point. Taking a woman's virginity out of lust was dishonorable, and the fact she was under his protection made it so much worse.

Kagome finally looked up to face him again, and her eyes were filled with shame. Sesshoumaru nuzzled her cheek in an apology his pride wouldn't let him speak. When he repeated the action, Kagome closed her eyes and felt his curve-crazed groping hand gently wipe the tears off her cheeks. She didn't resist as he leaned her back on the soft grass, or when she felt him move slowly inside of her…

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	6. Steel, Silk, and Apologies

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**Atonement**  
_By Miss Kagura  
_Chapter Six — Steel, Silk, and Apologies

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As Inuyasha raced through the forest after a swarm of Saimyosho, Naraku's poisonous insects, he began to feel like he was walking into a trap. With Kirara hot on his heels carrying the rest of his upset pack, he only pushed himself harder, until his feet slid to a stop only feet from the scent-less, youki-less child holding a mirror for him. "Kanna!" he shouted. 

Her blank eyes stared forward at nothing as she tilted the mirror to their view. When Miroku and Sango stood at Inuyasha's side and Shippou on his head, the mirror rippled like the surface of a lake and showed him exactly what was happening somewhere else that night. The 'somewhere else' he recognized as being Toutousai's Mountain, but he stared in confusion at the movement. "Why the hell are you showing me that? I don't wanna see two people fuck!" Inuyasha said as he deciphered the rhythm.

Kanna simply held the mirror. "Look closely and you will see that this coupling is not as insignificant as you think."

The blushing hanyou squinted his eyes as the mirror tilted, giving him a clear view. One figure was unmistakably his pale, lean brother, who was propped up on his arm as he slowly thrust into…"She wouldn't," Inuyasha whispered. His claws sliced deeply into the nearest tree, which he threw several meters across the forest.

Sango and Miroku stood stunned, but the monk grabbed the kit and covered his eyes. "Kagome does not seem to have been forced to lay with him, so I believe it is not our business to judge what she chooses." He put a hand on Inuyasha's shoulder, hoping to avoid what could turn into a very bloody confrontation between the two Inu brothers. "Neither do we need to intervene."

Kanna walked off into the shadows of the forest, leaving the group.

Inuyasha growled and leapt into the air, running along the tree line so fast he knew they'd never catch him. His asshole of a brother had gone so, so far past 'too far,' and the only thing that would ever come of his sleeping with Kagome is pain for him and Kagome. How could the human-hating Sesshoumaru throw even his most valued principle to the side and take her virginity? Did Sesshoumaru honestly hate him more than he cared about his own self-prescribed laws?

Had Sesshoumaru finally become too good for himself?

If Inuyasha had known how peacefully Kagome slept as he raced to rescue her, his heart would have broken.

By the time he made it to Toutousai's Mountain, Sesshoumaru was gone. There, alone, wounded, and vulnerable, Kagome slept in the grass, wearing nothing but Sesshoumaru's silk haori and obi. Her hair was a mess, but she looked strangely beautiful, sprawled out in tall green grass. He snarled. Where were her tears? Where was the regret? Why did she have to look so fucking gorgeous and happy?

"You need to leave, Inuyasha," Inuyasha heard. He looked up to Toutousai, who sat on a tree limb above Kagome. "It's done. Nothing you can do now can change that."

The old youkai listened to Tessaiga's cries, inaudible to anyone else but him. It made him feel so old and more than a little helpless. After all, his former master did little more than bring Inuyasha into the world. He left behind two sons, asking only that Toutousai turn them into honorable men. He watched Inuyasha grow up, fall in love, and then fall asleep as Sesshoumaru continued to stumble on the path he wasn't supposed to be walking on in the first place.

The sons of the Great Dog Demon grew up and became honorable men, except when it came to each other. The person each should have relied on most was the one they hated more than anything in the world. For that reason, Toutousai felt like a failure.

The hanyou bit down on his lip until he tasted his blood, and hated it, because half of it he shared with his brother. "Is he coming back or did he abandon her now that he's fucked her?"

"Not even Sesshoumaru knows the answer to that question yet," Toutousai said.

The hanyou growled so low in his throat the ground rumbled and Kagome slowly opened her eyes, a bit confused at first by the noise. She looked up slowly and sat up on her knees. The shame had vanished from her eyes, driven away by words whispered in the dark, and memories that bled together in a concert of moans and cries. Sesshoumaru said things to her that she knew he didn't want to. It didn't make them any less true or either of them less capable of being dishonest with one another.

Kagome also knew Sesshoumaru was gone, and that he might not come back.

"Are you even sorry, Kagome? It was supposed to be me," Inuyasha hissed.

Kagome folded her hands in her lap. "No, it wasn't. It never was. You'll never stop loving Kikyou, and that's okay. You don't have to stop loving her and I don't have to make the same choices she did."

His ears flattened and his voice cracked, and suddenly the decision to separate herself from him hurt her like hell. "I thought…I thought we were soulmates. That's why you came back to me in this time; to be with me because that's just the way it was supposed to be. The last lifetime, this one, and even the next. I love you, Kagome."

"Tell me something, Inuyasha. Why is it that only my being touched by your brother could make you say that?" she cried out she stood to her feet. "You're worse than he is. You think you can tell me that you love me and that everything will be okay."

"We're supposed to be together," Inuyasha said as he pulled her into a brave embrace.

"In my last life, maybe," Kagome replied.

The hanyou felt the silk of his brother's haori slide under the pads of his clawed fingers as she stepped out of his embrace. "It's not supposed to end like this," Inuyasha said.

"Yes, it is. It has to," Kagome whispered.

"Why?" he asked, knowing well that his heart was about the break into more pieces than he would ever be able to count.

Kagome's lips lightly brushed his. "Because I'm not Kikyou. I'm sorry."

Inuyasha's took one step back, and then several thousand in the opposite direction of Kagome, running away from her as fast as his legs would allow. His future no longer existed. All he had left were the temporary companions who would abandon him as soon as Naraku was dead. What would happen to him? How had his life suddenly become such a mess?

Back at the mountain, Kagome tied the yellow and purple obi tighter, unsure of what was going to happen next. Where would she go if Sesshoumaru never came back?

"Come on. No point in sitting down here," Toutousai said as he leapt down from above.

Kagome hiked up the mountain behind him, practicing her newfound skill for purifying air as she inhaled it. She watched him work, hammering into metal time and time again. When he took it out of the fire, she saw the glimmer of the half-molten steel bow. "Wow…it's beautiful," She whispered. He comment was either unheard or ignored, so she just kept watching him. "Do you think I made a mistake?"

Toutousai's unnaturally large eyes rolled around to watch her. "For you, it remains to be seen. For him, it was a catastrophic failure to adhere to everything he believed. If he doesn't come back for you, I can't blame him. However, if he does, he'll be one step closer."

"Closer to what?" she asked.

Toutousai took a dusty, sheathed sword from under the table and handed it to Kagome. "Bakusaiga. That sword will change the world when Sesshoumaru is ready to wield it."

Kagome ran her fingers along the blade. It was hard to imagine that in someone else's hands, or hand, in Sesshoumaru's case, a piece of metal could come to life the way Toutousai's other swords did. Would it heal the sick? Resurrect the dead? Kill a hundred youkai with one sweep?

Toutousai kept on working, listening to Bakusaiga's unheard report on Kagome's heart. Finally, someone worthy had come along. The weapon intended for Midoriko hadn't been completed at her death, and the next miko that might have been capable of wielding the Tonbogiri died in the scandal that sealed Inuyasha to a tree.

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By the time Toutousai finished work on the weapon a week later, Sesshoumaru was far away and had no intention of coming back. 

Like Kagome, he didn't feel as shameful about that night as much as it made him feel disgusted. After the turbulent moments they spent hating themselves, he leaned her back in the grass and made love to her, without the 'love,' of course. Without that, which he was certainly thankful for, what had they been making? Mistakes? Regret? It didn't feel that way at the time and for something he regretted Sesshoumaru certainly didn't want to forget how the curvature of her bottom fit so perfectly in his hand.

The week wore on, and while Sesshoumaru didn't specifically miss her, he started to realize the role Rin and Kagome played in his life. On his own or with Jaken, his life was one fight after another, interrupted by traveling and resting. A hand used only for destruction did little to make him feel anything other than cold. It made Sesshoumaru realize how long he had been wandering Japan in search of greatness and how unfulfilling it had actually been.

His fondest memories were not of battle, but of a little girl sleeping in his lap.

Sometimes, without realizing it, Sesshoumaru would think of Rin's infectious little giggle while sentencing hordes of the unworthy to Hell. And then, when all the blood had been split and the battlefield quiet save his own heartbeat, he would return to her and she would giggle and hug his legs, totally unaware of the power she held over his life.

Sesshoumaru tilted his head and listened for it, but he knew Rin had been forever silenced by the only other person near him. The hand that might have grasped Tokijin for such a confrontation on any other day remained still. The fact that he hated his brother and his brother hated him didn't make them any less related. With that fact in mind, he wasn't surprised to sense the anger coming from the hanyou.

Slowly, he turned and faced Inuyasha. Sesshoumaru wasn't sure how Inuyasha had learned of his night with the miko, but it was clear that he had.

"Let's finish this, you fucking hypocrite," Inuyasha hissed, Tessaiga in hand.

It only angered him further that Sesshoumaru remained as still as a statue, as if his justified rage didn't matter to him. The elder brother simply stared at his mess of a brother. It was the last three words that revealed the unseen wound Sesshoumaru had dealt to his brother by sleeping with the miko. The reason he had rejected the boy all his life had been tossed out the window for a girl.

"Unnecessary," Sesshoumaru said.

Inuyasha held up the sword and growled. "That never stopped you before!"

"I no longer desire your sword," Sesshoumaru said as he realized he couldn't even think about Tessaiga without remembering what it had taken from him. The Wind Scar he coveted had taken the most precious thing in his life, and because of that, Tessaiga disgusted him as much as the hanyou who carried it.

The hanyou wasn't about to accept that answer. "Why? Because you decided along the way you wanted Kagome instead?"

At this moment of his life, Sesshoumaru could have torn into his little brother about how delicious she was. He could have explained that taking Kagome from him in the manner that he did literally stole Inuyasha's whole future. They both knew Inuyasha would likely never find anyone who would look past the ears Kagome adored. He could have destroyed Inuyasha.

It wasn't as glorious as Sesshoumaru had imagined it would be. Rin was dead, Inuyasha had lost Kagome, Sesshoumaru had done the one thing he swore not to, and they were all fragmented and hurt.

"You used her to get back at me, you bastard! How could you do that?" Inuyasha accused.

Sesshoumaru's toes turned toward Toutousai's Mountain as he carefully regarded his brother. As much as allowing Inuyasha to believe such a thing inflicted what Sesshoumaru believed to be deserved misery, he felt obligated to defend Kagome's honor, considering that he had been responsible for taking her innocence. "What we did had nothing to do with you. I would not dishonor a woman in such a manner."

* * *

Toutousai heard the slightest whisper from Bakusaiga as Sesshoumaru quickly made his way up the mountain. The bundle he carried was his gift to the miko who had thrown him into such unexpected emotional turmoil. Why he was rewarding Kagome for it he was unsure, but he preferred to be in her good graces. 

Some strange truth had revealed itself to Sesshoumaru, and explained so much of what he felt. He was a warrior, a killer, and at times a monster of epic proportions. He wanted greatness, but at the end of the day, he needed something else to soften the edges of his abrasive personality. Something alive, beautiful, supple, and warm to experience after all the bloodshed and battle seemed to make everything about life just a little better.

The first thing he heard from her was laughter. Kagome wasn't brokenhearted that he might not have come back, and that made him feel relief for reasons he didn't quite understand. He peeked around the edge of Toutousai's house and watched Jaken and Kagome sparring with wooden staffs. Close observation of her feet revealed a greater sense of balance than Kagome had before he left, and when Jaken finally did knock her off her feet, she looked at her hands in confusion when they didn't scrape on the ground upon impact.

Kagome's skin was starting to get a luminescent sheen, a sign she was slowly integrating the raw power the well had sealed up with her human body. What hadn't improved was her ability to sense youkai, as proven by his undetected observation of her progress.

When Jaken squawked his name, Kagome turned and smiled at him, but didn't say anything. She was still wearing his clothing, and ran up to him with the staff still in hand. "You came back."

"Accidentally," Sesshoumaru replied as he held the tied up bundle out to the miko. She took it with a small amount of wonder sparkling in her eyes. "I understand your clothing was permanently decommissioned during our…altercation." He followed her into Toutousai's house and into the back room where the old demon apparently slept.

"Is there a reason to make you leave while I dress?" she asked.

Sesshoumaru shrugged and his haori was shed, revealing Kagome only in panties. Her back was too him, but it certainly didn't keep him from staring.

Kagome untied the bundle, a little nervous about what Sesshoumaru had chosen to dress her up in. She had visions of proper, era-appropriate clothing, which made her cringe. Her hands shook folds out of a short, slit-up-the-thigh midnight blue Chinese cheongsam. The fabric bore a silver pattern of plum blossoms here and there, and as she put it on, the taiyoukai watched as it hugged curves that had been hidden under the peculiar outfit he had destroyed.

Kagome's worn brown shoes were placed on the floor and replaced with matching slippers that she carefully buckled. The last thing in the bundle was two jeweled hair sticks, which she slipped into carefully twisted black hair. Blue gemstones dangled carelessly at the ends of each, as Kagome ran her hands over the silky soft dress. "Thank you. I half expected a seven-layer kimono," she said to Sesshoumaru.

The fact that he knew exactly what was under the dress did little to diminish the shock effect of seeing the graceful curves move under the dark blue dress. Combined with the darkness of her hair, the glowing skin, and brightness of Kagome's eyes, it was mysterious and sexy all at once.

"About that night, I've been thinking about it a lot, and I don't think we should do that again. It really hurt Inuyasha," Kagome said.

Sesshoumaru's roving eyes bugged out at the mention of his brother's name. "What we do is none of his concern. We are free to make our own mistakes."

"I don't know if it was a mistake or not, but I don't regret it. I've been miko, girl from the future, Kikyou's reincarnation, student, adoptive mother, best friend, and a thousand other things over the past couple of years in this world. But that made me feel…" Her face turned pink, and then red. "…It made me feel like a woman, and I've never felt that before," she explained.

The blushing woman swallowed hard and waited for Sesshoumaru's response. She felt a little lighter after her confession and a little more convinced she hadn't made the worse decision of her life. It was possibly an ill-thought out judgment, but being stripped emotionally and physically with the taiyoukai was an exhilarating, thrilling experience. For that time, she was nothing else but a woman and it seemingly brought some sort of alignment to a life she never knew was so imbalanced.

Sesshoumaru thoughtfully gazed at her, and then took her small hand in his. He needed someone to make his life something other than destruction and death; she needed him to balance her life in a time of growth. She leaned into his chest and his hand let go of hers to push her body into his. "I'm scared. My body is changing. I can feel it," she whispered into his chest.

"Did Toutousai make you a weapon or were you forced to spar with Jaken all week?" Sesshoumaru curiously asked.

Kagome stepped back and shook her left hand, where a large metal bow suddenly materialized. "Tonbogiri," she said. She twisted her arm and it transformed into a long spear with curved blades on each end. "I'm kind of afraid of this part." Then, it disappeared completely as easily as it had appeared in the first place.

Sesshoumaru had seen weapons that would disappear and reappear at will, and they were always bound to something like a ring or necklace, neither of which Kagome wore. Toutousai had clearly found an inventive and intelligent way to arm the miko. He didn't ask; she would have readily told him how and nobody else needed to know except her.

Later that night, Kagome followed Sesshoumaru back down the mountain, ignoring Jaken's chatter. "Where are we going?"

"To find Naraku," Sesshoumaru replied as they resumed their travels.

Night fell, and as they set up camp, Jaken picked up the telltale scent of sulfur in the air. "I smell a hot springs."

Kagome let out a sigh of relief. "I call the first bath!"

Sesshoumaru thought for a moment, and then stood up from his resting position against a rock. "Jaken, I have an errand for you. Take Ah-Un and see if any villages on the other side of the mountains have heard any rumors of Naraku's whereabouts."

When the complaining Jaken was out of sight, Sesshoumaru turned to the blushing miko, leaned over and unbuckled her shoes, and placed them neatly aside. When the dress joined them on the ground, Kagome watched the desire burn in his eyes. Yes, he made her feel like a woman, but it also made her feel like he was her man. His needs would become her own. She knelt in front of him, and whispered something that could only be said to Sesshoumaru. "What do you need?"

A second later, she was on her back, and with no words at all, he answered with a long, slow lick between her legs. She gasped when he did it again, and moaned his name when his tongue slipped into her. What Sesshoumaru needed was to hear the soft mewls and desperate cries of the woman under him. To be needed by a female, whether as a father in Rin's case, or a lover, in Kagome's case, had proven to be gratifying more than any victory had been.

Sesshoumaru realized he liked being Rin's father and Kagome's lover more than he liked being a killing machine.

Bakusaiga rumbled from its shelf in Toutousai's workshop. _"Soon,"_ it said to its maker.

* * *

**Please Review!**

I'm starting to borrow a little from the current manga volume with Bakusaiga and whatnot.

Special thanks to VampireGoddess12Xx, Foxfire Inari, Laina Aurelius, LadySafire, TAJE, ArizonaBay, llebreknit, flrtymiyu, 43InuAsha, LadyCupid, Alanna-Sama, musicallady1, Amadoni, Dragonesss Fohama, sayuri-girl, Tajia, sayuri-girl, Dominik Journot, shadowblade-tara, KazunaPikachu, darknessofmyheart, and sessluver!


	7. Stand

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* * *

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**Atonement**  
_By Miss Kagura  
_Chapter Seven — Stand

* * *

Another week passed, and Sesshoumaru's group did little more than train Kagome and continue to search for Naraku. Jaken was sent on many frivolous tasks, although he was well aware of what was going on. The musky scent of Sesshoumaru, something he was completely unfamiliar with, constantly marked Kagome's scent. At first, he attributed it to what he had assumed to be a mistake at the base of Toutousai's Mountain, but as days went by, the smell stayed with her, a sign they were regularly having sex. 

Jaken worried for them, since they didn't seem to be interested in worrying about the consequences of the things they did while he did pointless errands that kept him away from the camp. He would notice the way Sesshoumaru would look at Kagome, or they way she lit up when she did certain things that pleased him, and feared for both of them.

It was inevitable that people would find out, and when they did, the corollary would probably become a thing of legend. There would be tales of Inu trying to take down their lord before he tainted their strongest bloodline, holy people who wanted to end the travesty Kagome committed when she gave her body to him, and others who wanted to kill for vengeance or reputation.

Jaken knew better than anyone that Sesshoumaru couldn't handle another heartbreak like the one he had after losing Rin.

So, with a letter tucked into the trunk of an old tree, Jaken betrayed his Lord Sesshoumaru and the miko he had befriended. Someday, they would need a safe place, and as long as Sesshoumaru's human lover was still breathing, he would be shown no mercy among his own kind. Where would they go when Sesshoumaru could no longer go to his home? Or, even more importantly, where would they go to keep the miko away from the Inu who would kill her to make sure their blood stayed pure?

Another day, another night he was sent away. The letter was gone, although it had been replaced by a metal whistle. The imp hid it in his robes, feeling guilty that no longer trusted Sesshoumaru to protect them so completely and afraid the lines the taiyoukai had crossed would cost him his life.

Back at the camp, Kagome uncomfortably shifted, crossing her legs under her.

Sesshoumaru seemed rather annoyed she had told Jaken to leave them. "How long will he be gone?"

"Morning, I guess. I thought…you know," Kagome started.

He stared at the ground for a moment, trying to figure out why he felt like a bastard. "Not tonight. You're fertile."

And there it was.

Kagome joined him in staring at a weed blowing in the warm night wind. "Right, right, I'm a pathetic human."

Sesshoumaru's voice took on a colder tone as he tried to make her feel less rejected. "It would be inconvenient. It is the wrong time in our lives to—"

"What if it wasn't?" she blurted out quickly. "What if everything in the world was perfect? What if it was just you and me, and there was nothing to fight?"

Sesshoumaru reached around her, and put his hand on her hip, pulling her closer to him. "It is pointless to speculate. You are miko; you will never live like a normal woman," he answered.

Kagome recoiled at the last two words and stared bitterly into his eyes.

"…_normal woman…"_

Kagome was sure the phrase still haunted Kikyou. It was a concept; an ideal that so many women simply took for granted. She was sure some of them dreamed of being something more, but from that point on, Kagome began to understand Kikyou's want for something less. It was just as foreign a concept to Inuyasha then, who had no one and no place to go. Thus, in the name of normalcy, they had been ready to give up what made them special to the world. For what? A little hut, a mat to sleep on, a few babies, and the right to die from natural causes?

What happened at Goshinboku fifty years before wasn't what Kagome thought it to be, and only realizing her own instinctual longings revealed the truth to her. Kikyou didn't want to change Inuyasha, and Inuyasha wasn't so ashamed of his hanyou blood to allow such a thing. No, they were willing to sacrifice their strength and place in the world for a chance to be happy.

Sesshoumaru watched Kagome's sad realization and glanced over her body again. It was a shame to give hormones to a creature built for fighting and defending. The same could be said for him, in theory, but in Kagome's case, it was especially true. Factors that made her irresistible as a woman also made her perfect for marriage and mother. Had she chosen the other side of the well, that might have been the life she led, and it would have been satisfying.

The hips he loved to hold were there to give birth to children she would probably never have, and the breasts he adored with his lips were intended to feed them. He didn't know much about the various chemicals her body produced, but he was very aware of them and the fact they were a sign of her fertile youth, of a body that wanted to do something other than fight.

"It's silly to think like this, isn't it?" she asked.

The taiyoukai's eyes softened when the miko melodramatically threw her body into his chest. He always found her occasional silliness to be among his favorite traits. The fact she could always find a little bright light someone inside of her to do such things showed emotional strength that she hadn't fully realized.

"Once, I wished to be someone other than my father's son. The training was strenuous," he said in a voice so low Kagome could barely hear it. "I do not regret living as nature intended instead of finding satisfaction in the things all creatures are capable of."

Kagome lay down next to him, with her head in his lap. She stared up into his eyes, as if trying to look right to him. Never once had she imagined the wandering dog's quest for greatness to be anything short of stupid. What she had mistaken for cold determination and selfishness was the utter commitment to everything he was supposed to be. He was born to be the almighty Killing Perfection, and that is what he had set out to become.

With a few words and a thoughtful stare, Sesshoumaru promised her it would be worth it. Granted, Kagome wouldn't be happy all the time; he clearly wasn't. She was born miko the same way he was born taiyoukai, and the fidelity to that purpose was far more important than seeking happiness.

If she was going to be happy, she'd have to find it along the way.

She had barely fallen asleep when she was jerked from unconsciousness by a Shikon shard that moved into the miko's sensory path. With a started jump, Kagome stared due north and shook Sesshoumaru's leg until he awoke fully. "There's a Shikon shard near!"

"Inuyasha and his company are in the area as well," Sesshoumaru replied to Kagome, who was quickly preparing for battle. He hadn't sensed them while sleeping because they were still a fair distance away. They both knew that some combination of jewel shards, Inuyasha, and Sesshoumaru was an unwritten recipe for a disaster, even though Sesshoumaru had never expressed an interest in them.

Kagome climbed onto the dragon and slipped the quiver over her shoulders. "It's only one shard, so it might be Kohaku."

Ah-Un carried her quickly; Sesshoumaru flew by her side.

Kagome shivered and said, "I sense Naraku's shard too!"

What they arrived to was intended to be Kohaku's final battle. He was hovering over a valley filled with Naraku's miasma, and Naraku hovered meters above it in an impenetrable barrier. Just as Kagome slid off the dragon, Inuyasha managed to cut Kohaku free from the tentacles that held him, but Kohaku plummeted into the miasma.

Sesshoumaru leapt toward the toxic black mist, but was intercepted by an array of feathers thrown like darts.

Sango knocked Kagome down to the ground and out of the path of the attack, and then screamed in her ear for her brother. "Kohaku!" Kagome and Sango scrambled behind a rock where they saw Sesshoumaru fighting an unfamiliar youkai. "That's Naraku's newest incarnation, Chiba. She's too fast, even for Inuyasha."

The woman had bird wings, and looked strikingly similar to Kagura, although her method of attack involved pelting her foes with poisoned feathers and the use of a scythe. Sesshoumaru drew Tokijin and began to push her away from Kagome and the rest of Inuyasha's group. He did little more than look over his shoulder, making a silent request of Kagome.

Kagome nodded and ran around the edge of the cliff to where it appeared easiest to climb down, but just as she did, Naraku turned his full attention to her. As the most arrogant bastard currently living in the Sengoku Jidai (a title he shared with Kagome's lover), Naraku had conjured up so many theories about Kagome since learning she was from the future.

Naraku had been completely disappointed to hear the well had been destroyed, and even more dissatisfied to hear that doing so seemed to have an impact on Kagome's powers. In Naraku's mind, Kagome was sent from the future that he controlled to stop him from coming into power. Her increase of power was possibly evidence of this, as was the fact she seemed to befriend those he had stepped on and destroyed.

When Naraku spotted her running alone, he decided to put an end to the miko's quest.

He loved the way she flinched when he turned to her, and the way her knees buckled inward. "Kagome, miko of the future…it seems you have outlived your part in this story," he said with a cruel smirk that was followed by a spray of his most intense miasma.

Kagome heard her friends scream for her, saw the black mist that instantly overwhelmed her, and pushed the fear from her mind. She heard the angry, desperate cry of Inuyasha, followed by a sound she would have recognized anywhere as the Wind Scar, which Naraku simply absorbed into his barrier with an exasperated sigh.

The force of the wind scar created a gust of wind that dissipated the toxic air that should have dissolved Kagome's body. What no one else could see or know was that with every breath, she fed her body with chi. After two weeks of doing it almost instinctively, every system of her body had felt the effects of it. The miasma that should have eaten her body away never made it through her skin.

Kagome stood completely still. Her buckled legs were straight, her shaking hands were steady, and she stood on her own in front of the hanyou that had haunted her dreams for years.

Naraku couldn't hide the shock or confusion on his face when he noticed not only how alive she was, but how Kagome no longer seemed to be terrified of him. Even Kikyou was vulnerable to his miasma. It made no sense that someone, youkai or miko, would suddenly develop an immunity to poison. "How did you do that?"

Taking a cue from Sesshoumaru, Kagome remained deathly silent, and merely stared at him. Telling Naraku why he could no longer scare or harm her with his miasma would clearly be a stupid choice. With her refusal, tentacles surged forward from his force field.

Sesshoumaru crossed her field of vision. "Dragon Strike!"

"Wind Scar!" Inuyasha echoed.

"Go!" Sesshoumaru yelled.

Kagome nodded and slid down a steep slope, right into the thick miasma that filled the valley Kohaku had fallen into. She couldn't see anything, but she could still sense his jewel shard. The noise from above and falling tentacles told her the brothers were getting along for once, keeping Naraku and his detachment busy while she rescued Kohaku.

The lost, corrupt, half-conscious boy seemed to have forgotten everything all over again. Kohaku felt the darkness in his heart driven away with a single touch from Kagome. He did as she asked; he was blind in the miasma like she was. He rested on Kagome's back as she retraced her steps and emerged from the abysmal black pit of poison Naraku created.

Naraku had retreated, but judging from the look on Sesshoumaru's face as he wiped a feather and blood covered Tokijin off, he had either dealt with Chibi or gone crazy on someone's chickens.

"Kohaku!" Sango cried out as she rushed to Kagome. "Kagome, that was amazing!"

Kagome realized that she hadn't done anything else but survive something that should have killed her. More importantly, she had just taken a stand and looked Naraku right in the eyes. The feeling it gave her was indescribable, and she wasn't sure if she wanted to laugh or stay quiet. The only time she had ever felt anything like she did right then was when she had nearly purified Naraku, only it seemed so much stronger when she, Kagome, had seemingly scared Naraku.

So, she laughed and hugged her friend. This, Kagome understood, was one of those moments that would make her life good, even if it never included 2.4 children and a husband.

Inuyasha, whose gaze was fixed upward to a figure in white and red, watched as Kikyou slowly walked away. Never had the art of being undead made her feel quite as bitter as that moment.

She was no longer the one Naraku feared.  
She was no longer the only one who could kill him.  
She was no longer the one Inuyasha desired.  
She was no longer the most powerful priestess.

Kikyou's place in the world had vanished in an instant, and no one even noticed. Once, she was a ghost with purpose, but from that moment on, she would be a ghost with no place to fill and nothing to do. She died, and the world finally moved on without her. She made a sarcastic joke to herself about how she'd get it right in the next lifetime, but it only made her wish she could cry.

* * *

Sesshoumaru took Kagome far away from Inuyasha and his group, wanting to avoid further contact with the hanyou, who accused him of intentionally putting Kagome in danger. The more he learned about his little brother, the more he was convinced Kagome was better off not being with him. The idea of Kagome being in danger bothered him just as much as it bothered Inuyasha, but it didn't make her any less of a miko. 

Kagome fell asleep, and awoke just after dawn to the return of Jaken, which always came with lots of free complaining. "Where's Sesshoumaru?" she yawned at the imp.

Jaken shrugged. "He wasn't here when I came back."

Something tickled Kagome's senses, and she hoped it was just a small youkai. It was odd though; youkai scattered at unbelievable speeds whenever Sesshoumaru went somewhere, especially the ones that felt they'd make good dog food. She never had seen him eat, but she assumed he did. That, of course, was another good explanation for the fact they never just ran into other youkai the way she did when she traveled with Inuyasha.

It happened twice in a row then, each time from a different direction. When she sensed something from directly in front of her, she knew that there was at least four of _something_ and they were surrounded. Then, it was as if the youkai simply disappeared. They didn't move out of her senses, and they didn't come closer.

"Jaken, what kind of demons can hide their presence?" Kagome whispered.

Jaken began a lecture, totally unaware of the youkai that were closing in on them. "Only very, very powerful ones are capable of accomplishing such a feat. Sesshoumaru-sama can, and most of the Inu Taiyoukai. I believe a few other species of taiyoukai are able as well. Why?"

Kagome put her hand over his mouth. "We're surrounded," she whispered.

"You know, it's really rather silly of you to bother whispering. We can all hear you," a man said as the four taiyoukai stepped into the clearing. They all looked like Inu, from what she could tell.

Kagome stood up and found her back against Jaken's. "You're all Inu?"

"Mhmm," another replied.

"Umm…why are you circling us like sharks?" Kagome squeaked.

Jaken smashed his staff into the chest of one who stood inches from him. "You're Sesshoumaru-sama's cousin, Hoshi! You should not be treating his—" His sentence came to a dead stop.

Hoshi bent down to Jaken's face and grinned. "I shouldn't what…treat his bitch with such disrespect?"

Hoshi stepped in front of Kagome and rudely sniffed at her as she did a quick mathematical assessment of the situation. An untrained miko, a kappa, and a dragon versus four taiyoukai were worse odds than Shippou against Naraku. She couldn't make her feet move, and it only got worse as she realized that Sesshoumaru was nowhere to be seen and Hoshi had blood on his white haori.

The other three Inu remained still, making it clear Hoshi was their leader. He showed her his claws and said, "It's nothing personal, Miko. My cousin is of the strongest youkai bloodline in Japan. You are human."

Jaken's shaking fingers rustled through the robe until he found the metal whistle. He had known this moment would come; he just didn't know it would be so soon or orchestrated by someone so close to Sesshoumaru. He suspected Naraku had probably informed the Inu of Sesshoumaru's relationship. No one else really had anything to gain from it.

Jaken took a deep breath and blew into it as hard as he could. Hoshi and the others hit the ground, covering their ears from the sound that no one else seemed to hear until his breath died out and the tone lowered to a point even Kagome could hear it. Ah-Un recognized the noise from many years before, and even though Kagome was confused and terrified, she climbed onto the dragon and pulled the imp on after her when it took off a second too soon.

"Jaken, what is going on?" Kagome screamed.

Jaken and Kagome leaned down as Ah-Un started to fly in between branches and into a forest Kagome knew only as the Youkai Forest, which Inuyasha would travel miles around to avoid. She was almost in tears over the fact that they didn't know anything about Sesshoumaru, although she knew if Hoshi truly wanted to preserve Sesshoumaru's bloodline, it wouldn't have made sense to kill him.

"I don't know!" Jaken squawked.

The dragon came to a stop on a wooden porch of what Kagome could only describe as the world's largest and most dangerous tree house. She couldn't see the ground through the dense fog, and a lot of wood on adjacent trees looked like it had been shredded by a cat. "Jaken, who lives here?"

He hesitantly explained how he'd been making plans for them to follow if attacked, and Kagome practically melted onto the floor.

"I'm bad for him," she said.

"Actually," a voice from below said, "poison is bad for him. Love is slightly less lethal."

A distinctively feline woman climbed up a tree and leapt onto the ledge with them, letting Sesshoumaru's taller form drag behind her. His arm was draped around her neck and he seemed to be barely conscious. She walked inside of a house with almost no floors and across a beam to a bed, where she let Sesshoumaru drop.

"Isn't he immune to poison?" Kagome asked as she watched him convulse.

Abi, the cat youkai, touched the poisoned wound with one finger. "There's a limit to that."

"Nikkou-sama, Sesshoumaru's mother, told me of you when I divulged details of the relationship to her," Jaken said.

Abi wiggled her whiskers and seemed disgusted at the mention of Sesshoumaru's mother. "I hid him here when he was a pup during the Ryu Wars. Nothing will find you here."

Kagome pulled pieces of his broken armor out of a stomach wound, which seemed to have been caused by a giant claw. "Sesshoumaru?" she gently called out. When he didn't even look at her or acknowledge he heard her. She moved her hand in front of his eyes, and they didn't move.

"He's blind," Jaken said.

* * *

**Please Review!**

Special thanks to SesshomaruCrazy, bluemiko, ChibiSan1092, S.T. Nickolian, flirtymiyu, Dominik Journot, kagome past and present, kumikonhan, sayuri-girl, Welshteen, Laina Aurelius, LadySafire, BlazingMidnightRain, Amadoni, 43InuAsha, darknessofmyheart, aimdiscord, sesshomaruz-youkai, Taiyoukai89, ArizonaBay, dimpleslane1992, dedanaan, Sesshoumarusgurl4lyfe33, llebreknit, and Starlight – Wild Koneko!


	8. Seclusion

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**Atonement**  
_By Miss Kagura  
_Chapter Eight — Seclusion

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When they were just adults, taking part in their relationship for the sake of themselves and each other, everything seemed fine. Casual in application and occasionally impersonal, Kagome couldn't deny that she occasionally acted selfishly, or that she never discouraged Sesshoumaru from doing so. Sometimes they had moments that felt out of place in what Kagome's modern friends would have called a 'friends with benefits' relationship. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on the time of day, the premise that they were only involved because it was good for them had been torn apart at its illogical seams by Sesshoumaru's own kind. 

Sesshoumaru suffered for her, and it hurt Kagome so much that she wished Hoshi had hurt her too so they could endure the pain together. He couldn't see her, he couldn't hear her, and while the cat swore it wasn't permanent, she could sense he was afraid. Hours passed, and as the unshakable, fearless, invincible Sesshoumaru convulsed and vomited in a senseless stupor, Kagome cleaned up the mess and tried to make him comfortable.

When Kagome was too tired to stay awake anymore, she curled up in the bed with the feverish taiyoukai.

"What are you doing?" she screamed when she saw the cat enter the room after a nap that lasted most of the day.

Abi gripped one of his claws in a pair of pliers and pulled it out. "I'm making sure he doesn't rip you to pieces while he's asleep."

"I'll sleep somewhere else," Kagome said.

"I think you're exactly where you need to be. It's all for you, after all. Besides, he's blind and deaf, but his other senses are probably intact," Abi replied as a third claw fell.

She blew out a lamp and left Kagome alone with Sesshoumaru, who was still shaking violently. Sometimes, she envied people who fell in love. Even at the absolute worst moments in life, the miko stayed with Sesshoumaru. Kagome hurt because Sesshoumaru did; she cried because she was so scared she could barely move.

Kagome held him as he slept, and whispered so softly into ears that couldn't even hear her. "I know you can't hear me right now, but please get better soon. I think I'm falling in love with you."

On dawn of the second day at Abi's home, Kagome awoke to the 'Thud-Scream' sound she was getting rather accustomed to. Jaken, being small and slow moving, enticed the cat naturally. Abi, who seemed to behave like an overgrown housecat, would stalk him from the ceiling rafters, sometimes for hours, and then pounce on him for nothing other than shock value.

Afternoon came, and she was sleeping beside Sesshoumaru when he awoke. His sight and hearing had returned, although both were still dull. Jaken was at his side, and Kagome was on his other side in the bed with him. He was completely disoriented at first, and it blended into confusion as he realized he knew where he was. "How did I get here?" he asked.

Jaken bowed his head, suddenly unable to explain what he was doing in Abi's house. Of all the things that had happened, he still couldn't tell Sesshoumaru that he had failed in protecting his pack and been forced to take refuge. "I…when you sent me away I went to go see your mother. She said that when the Inu found out, this would be the place to go."

"You find my protection insufficient?" he quickly retorted.

Abi pounced on Jaken, ignored his strangled cry, and flopped down on the floor. "Stop being such a tart, Sesshoumaru. You just spent two days in a senseless daze vomiting all over my bed and occasionally your woman. You should be thankful someone in your group actually has common sense."

Sesshoumaru sat up, and growled at the pain that shot through his body. A handful of his hair had been taken captive by the sleeping miko's fingers, and when he slowly disentangled it from her fingers, they instinctively wrapped around his hand instead.

"Come, Froggy, you will catch me fish today," Abi said as she led a rather frightened imp out of the house to leave Sesshoumaru and Kagome alone.

The dog demon watched Kagome sleeping for awhile, and gave her an examination of sorts. She looked like hell, but bore no wounds, no smell of blood, and no bruises. Puffy, swollen eyes smelled like the tears that had soaked places on the bed, dried, and then been cried on all over again.

She wept for him.

Sesshoumaru wasn't really sure at first why it affected him so deeply. He had been hurt before and much worse; no one had shed tears for his well being and he didn't care. He leaned down and nuzzled her rosy cheeks; Kagome had never looked more beautiful, even though she was an absolute mess. She was an absolute mess for him and she was gorgeous.

Kagome's eyes slowly opened as her lips formed a smile. "You threw up on me."

"You're beautiful," he replied as he gave her a quick kiss.

Kagome sat up and looked around, and then searched the ceiling rafters for the cat youkai. "Where's Abi?"

Sesshoumaru ran his hand up her thigh. "I believe she went to go play with her new toy."

"Poor Jaken," Kagome half-heartedly whispered as his hand went further up. She pushed the hand down and scowled into the droopy, tired eyes of the taiyoukai. "Not until you've recovered. Besides, I think we need to talk. We have to reassess our relationship. If it's just convenience, well, it's not very convenient to be attacked and poisoned."

"Indeed," he replied.

Rain began to batter the roof of Abi's house and Kagome found it a little metaphoric, as if they sky was weeping for the horrid cost of she and Sesshoumaru being in love. The part of her that wanted badly to love him battled with the other half of herself who loved him just as much but wanted what was best for Sesshoumaru. Their relationship might kill him, and that thought horrified her. It couldn't be like that; Sesshoumaru was supposed to reach his peak potential and wield the Bakusaiga.

"It would be better for you if you left me behind," she whispered.

Sesshoumaru smiled for the first time that she had ever seen. It was vicious and bitter, flashing fangs that she had only rarely seen. "That would also be better for you," he said, knowing could leave her with someone to train, and she would become a powerful awe-inspiring creature with time.

But Sesshoumaru had bled for her.  
And Kagome had cried for him.

Suddenly, they could see the threads of fate that had bound them together in a world that hated the things they did in private. How anyone else ever understand what Kagome and Sesshoumaru experienced?

To kiss a taiyoukai…  
To taste a miko…

"I yield to no one," Sesshoumaru said.

Kagome let out a sigh of relief. "What happens now?"

"Abi will train you," Sesshoumaru said.

Kagome furrowed her brows. "Really?"

"Before she became Father's bitter, broken reclusive whore, Abi was an assassin. This place was where she hid from him and where I was kept safe during the Ryu War. The war lasted so long she ended up training me for years," Sesshoumaru replied.

Kagome quickly replayed several the fights she had seen Sesshoumaru in. He was graceful, quiet, and barely moved a muscle until the right moment just like a cat would. He was also aloof, moody, a little detached, and loved to be stroked, but that was beside the point.

Sesshoumaru settled back down in the bed and rested against Kagome. "My whole body hurts."

"Do you want me to kiss it and make it better?" Kagome coyly asked as she kissed the tip of his nose.

* * *

The sun was still sleeping when Kagome was hauled out of bed the next 'morning.' 

Her steps were light, because she did not want to wake the still-recovering Sesshoumaru, who did little more but roll into the warm void she left in the bed. "He's so cute when he sleeps," Kagome whispered the Abi.

"Deception," Abi quietly replied.

Kagome stifled a giggle and followed her out onto the wooden porch.

Kagome nervously nodded. "Okay, how do we start?"

Ten minutes later, Sesshoumaru awoke to the sound of Kagome screaming, "My body isn't supposed to bend like that!"

The miko lay on her back, but somehow her calves were on each side of her face, and she was sure she had never felt anything so unbearably horrible. Small amounts of pressure slowly eased her muscles into positions they had never been put in on purpose. Once, she had feet had slipped out from under her and she did the splits, but this…oh it hurt! The cat was completely merciless, and pulled and jerked her limbs until she found the place where it became physically impossible to bend Kagome any further. Not even Kagome's neck was spared the torture, twisted to the point she thought it might break. She followed the short orders she was given, 'reach for this',' bend that,' 'stop screaming,' and the most ridiculous of them all.

"Relax," Abi ordered as she pulled Kagome's entire torso down on an overstretched leg. She held the position as Kagome panted for air. "Flexibility, endurance, speed, agility, leaping, grace, and strength are the building blocks of all other forms of body mastery. You will do each for two hours each day."

By the time the sun came up, Kagome had completed two hours of being bent and contorted in ways that she didn't even know were possible. Every part of her body hurt. Then, Abi took her down to a nearby river and more or less forced her to spend the next two hours after that swimming upstream in the moderate current. Then, it was short sprints up the river bank and along the shore, which was followed by running in between tightly packed trees. A tree or two to the face taught Kagome that she wasn't very agile at all.

Abi brought her back up to the tree house for the rest of her training, and Kagome was sure that the only thing that kept her body from collapsing was her miko power. Her legs were shaking and numb as she did hundreds of jumps in between a couple of beams placed closely together on the floor.

When that was done, Kagome was forced to walk across a narrow wooden beam suspended fifty meters above the ground in the trees. She slipped, which did not surprise her considering the fact she could no longer feel her legs, and crawled the rest of the way. Upon arrival at the other side, she was told to repeat the action in reverse. Eventually, she did fall, and just before plummeting to her death, Abi caught Kagome.

As the final part of the days training, Abi simply left Kagome on the ground and told her to climb up to the house.

The miko excused the cat, swearing to purify her during the catnaps she dared take while Kagome beat her body into shape. Her hand slipped and splinters penetrated her skin; yes, the cat would die. She climbed a few branches higher, only to realize she could climb no higher on that particular tree, and was forced to jump onto the limb of another tree. The ascent was slow, the irritation was monumental, and she comforted herself with images of either killing the cat or shoving her into a tub of water.

After Kagome finally made it up to the house two and a half hours later, all visions of felinicide faded from memory when Abi offered her a much-needed glass of water and a bowl of fish, vegetables, and rice. She ate, drank, and managed to crawl to the bed she shared with Sesshoumaru as feeling began to return to her body.

One of her thighs kept twitching in an angry rhythm, and when the sick taiyoukai awoke to her falling into the bed, she whined, "My whole body hurts!"

"Do you want me to kiss it and make it better?" Sesshoumaru asked.

Kagome frowned and nestled next to him. "Do I smell bad? I can't move, much less go get a bath. Ugh, I'm going to be so sore tomorrow!"

"We both smell terrible," he replied.

"You're such a romantic," she whispered as she closed her eyes to sleep.

By some miracle, Kagome awoke to no pain at all. No aching tightness in her tired legs was present, and her muscles easily yielded to stretching far beyond where they normally would. A normal human, she knew, would probably be in the hospital after the lengths her body had been pushed to. A quick glance in the mirror revealed onto two thin pink lines where she had sliced her face open by running into tree trunks.

She took a quick look up, and saw Abi stretched out on her back, sound asleep. The miko cringed and grabbed a couple of empty water buckets, then stalked carefully to where Ah-Un slept. Quietly, the dragon took her down to the river she'd been forced to swim in and Kagome bathed. She cleaned her dress, and let the cool water wash over her skin for awhile. Once she was sure she no longer smelled of sweat, she filled the buckets and returned to the house.

"Good morning," Kagome whispered as she dabbed a cool cloth on Sesshoumaru's forehead. "I thought you might like a sponge bath, except I couldn't find a sponge." She wiped it down each side of his face, and then his ears and neck. She opened his haori and gasped at the black wound that didn't seem to have recovered at all.

"It's nothing," Sesshoumaru snapped.

Kagome lightly touched it and the muscles around it contracted as the taiyoukai let out a sharp gasp. "You're getting worse. Why are you not getting better?"

He closed his haori and stared at the wall. "Inu poison keeps the body from healing properly. It will take a long time for this wound to close."

He didn't say anything else as she reopened his haori and cleaned around the injury. "All this because we like to kiss? Talk about closed-mindedness."

"All this…because they think I would die for you. Ridiculous!" he said with a hint of humor.

Sesshoumaru knew even then that he would die for her. If he died for her, she would cry for him. Even if he knew it was total nonsense, it made him feel like it would be worth it. So, as the miko washed his skin, he thought about death, his death, and was not bothered. Every living thing died eventually, and his immortality meant that when he met his end, it would probably be at the end of someone else's aggression. It was oddly comforting to know that if he died, Kagome would mourn for him.

Kagome kissed his forehead when she finished giving him a bath. It was sad to see him reduced to such a state, and she knew his pride was taking more damage than he would admit. He drifted back to sleep before she was even done, and she spent a few minutes just staring at him. He looked so tired.

Kagome heard Abi drop down from the rafters and sniff the air. "I smell Inu," she hissed.

The cat's tail twitched as pulled open the drawer of one of the few pieces of furniture and produced a thick paintbrush and a bottle of black liquid. "First lesson of the day: black ink will wreak havoc on any sensitive nose, especially one belonging to a dog. Strip," she said.

Kagome thought back to one of the first jewel shards she captured with Inuyasha. The man had put the shard in an inkwell, and whenever he drew something, it came to life. Inuyasha easily fought the ink demons, but the scent of black ink totally short-circuited his nose. She had never thought of using that knowledge as a weapon before, although it certainly made sense.

Jaken went onto the wooden porch as Kagome took off the still-damp blue dress Sesshoumaru had given her. Kagome felt the cold liquid sweep over her skin in long, broad strokes down each of her sides, from armpit to hip. It dried in a few seconds and she redressed.

Silently, Abi stalked through the woods, with the miko holding tightly onto her back. Kagome was amazed that she couldn't sense the cat even while being in physical contact with her, and even more surprised by how utterly quiet she moved through the trees. A naginata hung on Abi's back between them, which concerned Kagome more than anything. The cat swore everything would be okay as long as Kagome followed the directions she had been given.

With a simple nod from Abi, Kagome climbed down a few branches and stood alone in the forest. She took her Tonbogiri, and used the sharp spear tip to slash the skin on the palm of her hand. She squeezed it, and let blood drip onto the ground before moving behind a tree so the smell of ink wouldn't taint the scent of her blood.

Kagome realized there really wasn't anything scarier than being bait, other than being youkai bait. And other than that…taiyoukai bait! Her hands shook, and everything around her suddenly seemed noisy. A bird singing, some sort of animal burrowing into the ground nearby and then there was the sound she didn't hear.

It wasn't Sesshoumaru's cousin Hoshi that came to the smell of her blood, but one of the others. Makeo was his name, but she wouldn't learn that until later.

"You're the one," Makeo hesitantly said.

She was the one his cousin loved, and the one he was supposed to kill.

Makeo had convinced himself that in order for his cousin to succeed in life, he'd have to take the distracting mortal woman away. She was bad for him and miko on top of that. Some part of Makeo thought Sesshoumaru would be disgusted with himself when he eventually came to his senses. And, while he had no problem killing humans, he didn't particularly like doing it unless there was no choice. His uncle, Sesshoumaru's father, had pounded into them the concept that pointless bloodshed was dishonorable, especially when it involved women and children.

It had to be done.

He had fought in too many wars for the Inu to watch their strongest fall because of someone who was going to die in a few decades anyway. She was defenseless and weak, and smelled of ink, the desperate attempt of a doomed miko to hide from those who hunted her.

Kagome saw him hesitate.

There was no shouting, no warning, no words exchanged between Abi and Makeo. Even the dog's sharp senses heard nothing until the naginata stabbed into his neck and slid down the skin of his back. The sound was indescribably awful and was followed by the dull thud of Makeo's spine falling to the ground, cut completely from his body. Makeo's body remained standing for a few seconds, randomly jerking, and then fell forward.

Abi hurled the bloody naginata into the high branches of a nearby tree and guided Kagome back to the tree that kept the smell of ink out of the air again. "Second lesson of the day: Never hesitate. It's a distraction and will cause you to lose focus of your senses. If you do it out of habit, you'll be targeted and killed."

Kagome swallowed hard and nodded. "Like him."

The cat hit her knees in an instant, and covered her mouth. Kagome was about to ask when Hoshi and the other two Inu who had tried to kill her came to the thick smell of Inu blood. "Hoshi! You guys have to get out of here! Sesshoumaru has gone crazy. He's going to kill you all!" she cried out as if she cared about the dead Inu.

Hoshi's eyes flew open in shock. "There's no way he's already fighting. The poison—"

"The only thing your poison did was piss Sesshoumaru off. He wasn't even sick for an hour afterward. If I were you, I'd be afraid of what he's going to do when he catches you," Abi said.

Hoshi took a few steps back, as if in awe of what Sesshoumaru had supposedly done. How was Sesshoumaru okay after being poisoned by not one, but _four_ other Inu? And ripped open as he had been? He looked down at the corpse; it was clear Makeo had no idea what had hit him. His death had been fast, brutal, and…perfect. Killing perfection? He almost smirked at how well it fit. "I guess he is his father's son," he said.

Hoshi eyed Kagome and realized that touching her would be the worst mistake of his life. Also, it would be the last. The Inu left them alone, headed back to the fortress to rethink the concept of killing the first person Sesshoumaru would kill his own kind for.

Kagome didn't say a word on the way back. She couldn't decide whether to be horrified at what she had just seen, or relieved to know they wouldn't be in danger for awhile.

When they got back to the house, Kagome was shocked to find Sesshoumaru had suffered a serious turn for the worst while they were gone. He was feverish, shaking, and unconscious again. Kagome rushed to his side and tried to prop him up so he could breathe better, but Jaken pulled back the blanket to reveal blood soaking through layers of cloth. "Jaken, what happened?" she asked.

"I don't know! He just got very sick, very fast. First, he started to sweat and wouldn't wake up, and then the blood. The smell of the poison seems to be getting stronger! It's like his body isn't fighting the poison anymore!" Jaken replied.

Abi frowned and pulled Jaken away from Sesshoumaru. "His liver isn't working. He's dying."

"You said he'd be fine! Isn't there anything we can do?" Kagome screamed.

"Not anything 'we' can do, no. You could try to help him, but it would probably just kill you too," Abi replied as she pushed Jaken across the floor. "Goodnight, Kagome. Good luck." She took the naginata and the imp and left on Ah-Un's back, leaving Kagome and Sesshoumaru completely alone.

Kagome knew she had limited skills as a miko, and certainly not any that were specifically geared toward healing. She could purify air when she breathed, which theoretically made everything in her body pure and charged it with her power. The chemistry angle was a mystery, but Kagome felt it would be illogical if her body produced impurities from purity. She also knew that at the Bone-Eater's Well, her powers had subconsciously not treated him as a threat, and let him through the barrier. All she did know that other than that, her only skills involved purifying shards and shooting arrows, neither of which seemed like they'd come in handy.

With that in mind, Kagome dug through the tired old backpack for two clothespins she used while doing laundry. She straddled his hips, careful not to get near his wound as she balanced her weight on her hands and leaned down. She put the clip over his nose, then one on hers. After two desperate kisses, Kagome pushed all the air out of her body as he inhaled, and then sealed her lips over his. When he exhaled into her mouth, the woman frantically clawed at the bed. It felt like fire, tainted by the poison that was slowly taking control of Sesshoumaru's body.

The miko focused every bit of her power into her poisoned lungs and exhaled back into Sesshoumaru's mouth. The taiyoukai's chest rose slowly, and then fell as another wave of pain struck Kagome. It suddenly didn't matter that it hurt or how much she just wanted scream. All that mattered was the heat, the relief, and the rise and fall of his chest as she breathed for him.

When Sesshoumaru awoke ten hours later, he was shocked to be alive, much less awake. His last memories indicated that his body had decided to succumb to the poison. Then, he remembered something as he stared down at the miko sleeping on top of him. She smelled like the very toxin he had just been fighting the night before. Kagome had purified every bit of it out of his body, and inevitably taken a great deal of it into her own.

Sesshoumaru wrapped his _arms_ around her and gasped.

* * *

**Please Review!**

Special thanks to TAJE, swtsugerbabi, Dragoness Fohama, VampireGoddess12Xx, musicallady1, Laina Aurelius, Foxfire Inari, BlazingMidnightRain, Britt-sempai, 43InuAsha, Yuki-hime, kagome past and present, shinxz, S.T. Nickolian, llebreknit, ArizonaBay, darknessofmyheart, Amadoni, SesshoumaruCrazy, shadowblade-tara, sayuri-girl, Dominik Journot, flirtymiyu and Kimi!

I really appreciate all my reviewers. This story almost didn't get written, but I've been encouraged so much along the way. I hope you all enjoy this update. Thank you for reading!


	9. Reaction

**

* * *

**

**Atonement**  
_By Miss Kagura  
_Chapter Nine — Reaction

* * *

Kagome's body fought the poison lingering in her body rather quickly, much to Sesshoumaru's surprise. Her capability to handle so much toxic taiyoukai youki indicated she was learning to regulate her body very well. The regenerative nature of her powers probably helped, allowing her to push her body harder. 

His body felt a little strange, like it had when walking around on Mount Hakurei in search of Rin. The amount of youki in his body was extremely low from Kagome's miko power, so his demonic senses were all incredibly dull.

His feet still remembered the house perfectly, and as he walked across a beam on the floor, he was amazed neither Jaken nor Kagome had fallen through the places Abi's house simply didn't have a floor. Then again, he hadn't seen Jaken since waking up, which meant he was either unconscious on the ground below or alone with Abi, which was just as bad. Worse, even.

Old memories resurfaced as he explored the giant tree house. He remembered being young and training on the wooden beam that stretched in between the tall trees, swimming in the river, and learning what he still believed to be the most important lessons in battle from the cat. When the war finally ended and it had been safe for him to return home as a child, his father had been upset to no end that Abi had 'turned him into a damn cat,' and spent the next years teaching him about the application of brute force and presence.

What Sesshoumaru realized much later in life was that the Inu No Taisho's training methodology differed greatly from that of the feline who actually trained him to fight. His father's idea of a great lesson followed this train of thought:

-Sesshoumaru overestimates himself.  
-Sesshoumaru gets his ass kicked by a foe.  
-Sesshoumaru realizes his faults.  
-Sesshoumaru surges back to win after reflection.

Abi, on the other hand, had forced him to learn all sorts of things about his future foes, including their strong points, weak points, physiology and scent. Combined with years of varying forms of youkai ninjutsu training and physical conditioning, he was able to skip all the heartfelt lessons his father wanted him to learn by 'falling and getting back up,' as he had so easily put it.

By the time his father actually came back into his life, Sesshoumaru had already been chiseled into the prideful, beautiful bastard he still was. He had been taught to cherish his pride and strive for purpose. So, the Killing Perfection became just that. Sesshoumaru was born to be great, so that became his goal in life. His father called him a 'smug, power-thirsty brat,' but it never mattered.

Inuyasha had always taken after their father. He yelled and talked too much while fighting, threw his weight and weapon around like a giant log, and often showed his emotional weaknesses during battle. Once Sesshoumaru had been taught how sloppy and uncouth this style of combat was, there was no going back, no matter how boisterous and passionate his father wanted him to be when engaging an enemy.

Sesshoumaru always began battles sure of what he would kill, the order he preferred his prey would fall, and how he would get exactly what he wanted from it. No hesitation and no thought; his mind was almost always clear of everything except the execution of his decisions. He almost never spoke to his victims, because, as Abi had once pointed out to him, talking to the dead is silly.

He sat down on one of the three branches and closed his eyes, remembering what it was like to have nothing to worry about except his advancement. He was eight when the war started and sixteen when it ended; by the time he returned to fortress life he was old enough to compare to his father. Things went downhill from there.

Once again, Sesshoumaru had taken refuge deep in the foggy woods of the Youkai Forest. He had grown up, grown old, and in some ways, grown very cold.

He went back inside and watched Kagome as she slept; he wondered how each of them had been so affected by one another. In order for her to save his life, he knew she must have been willing to die trying. What had begun as captivity to harm his brother had evolved into such a deep emotional commitment that could be none other than love. It hadn't been instant, and Sesshoumaru wasn't even sure it was real until he woke up realized that as much as he knew he would die for her, she would do the same for him. Even her power, which would have killed anyone else in his position the night before, delicately worked through his body, targeting the venom that threatened the life she had come to love so much.

Because of that love, her powers had caused some sort of regenerative reaction that closed the wound on his stomach and grew his arm as a gift from her loving, desperate, and powerful subconscious.

Kagome moaned and stirred, and Sesshoumaru shook her gently until her eyes opened. "Kagome, you need to focus on getting the rest of the poison out of your body."

Her blue eyes closed and she nodded her head. "You're okay."

"Better than before," Sesshoumaru replied.

"Huh?" she asked as she felt not one, but two hands slide under her bottom and hoist her onto his lap, so she was sitting up, facing him. "Your arm is back? How did that happen? I didn't think those were supposed to grow back!"

Sesshoumaru kissed her and let her lean on him. "Focus."

Kagome nodded and rested her head on his shoulder, dedicating all her effort and thought to put the whole poison ordeal behind her.

Several miles away and a few hours later, the smell of Inu blood hit Abi and Jaken like a ton of bricks, interrupting their attempts to capture the rare Ningyo youkai fish. "Does this mean Sesshoumaru-sama is okay?" Jaken asked.

Abi furrowed her brows and frowned. "No, the Inu that were hunting Kagome are fighting amongst themselves. That's odd for a pack species. Probably drunk."

"Do you think they're fighting over what to do about Sesshoumaru-sama's relationship?" he asked.

The cat shrugged and pointed to a dark shadow moving under the water, which Jaken immediately leapt toward. "Probably. I don't care either way," she said.

Jaken emerged from the water with a youkai fish flopping around in his hands and, much to his dismay, screaming. "It has a face! It talks!"

Long, curved, razor sharp claws extender from Abi's hands and with a few quick swipes, the fish's insides fell back into the water and Jaken was left holding the fleshy shell of its body. The cat threw the Ningyo's liver into a hot pan on the riverbank and Jaken dropped the rest of the body in the river. "What does this do, exactly?" Jaken asked.

"Ningyo liver oil can be used to open a gateway to the forest's insufferable celestial maiden, Sakura. I've wanted to kill her for quite some time, but taking Kagome under my wing has given me a practical reason for doing so. She has something that will come in very handy for our little miko," she explained.

Jaken's jaw dropped. "Killing a celestial being brings bad luck!"

Abi shrugged and said, "You're a servant and I'm the lonely whore of a dead dog. Tell me something, Froggy, can it get worse?"

"Ah, no, I guess not," he replied with a defeated sigh. It wasn't that he suddenly agreed; he was slowly getting accustomed to the never ending mischief the cat dragged him along for.

Allies had been few and far between, and Jaken could count Sesshoumaru's friends on one hand, especially after his decision to bed the miko. With a woman, even Jaken knew Sesshoumaru would want some place to come home to, especially if Kagome ever became pregnant, accidentally or otherwise. Jaken hoped that maybe the well-hidden tree house would eventually become their new home. It was neither a human nor youkai dwelling. There were no gossiping youkai whores (other than Abi), no judgmental humans, no 'holy' people to condemn the union, and no one else outside of what had become a very tight circle. It was safe, quiet, secluded, and comfortable, something he and Sesshoumaru had experienced so rarely in their travels.

For that, Jaken would help Abi kill Sakura the celestial maiden, even though he was sure she didn't deserve it and it would bring him bad luck. He had certainly built up more bad karma than he wanted to think about while serving under Sesshoumaru, what was a little more?

Night fell, and the four congregated in the tree house for what almost resembled a family meal. That is, of course, if the family in question included a dog, a cat, a water kappa, and a holy woman.

Kagome attacked a piece of meat with chopsticks, and spoke while chewing. One thing she loved about youkai was that none of them seemed to care about table manners. Sesshoumaru and Jaken were eating with their hands and Abi was pulling a fish fillet apart with 'finicky' written all over her cat face. "So what were you and Jaken doing all day?"

Jaken quickly answered with, "Nothing! Nothing at all!"

"What did you and Sesshoumaru do all day?" the cat asked with a slightly mischievous tone.

Kagome blushed and swallowed. "Nothing! Nothing at all!"

"It is a wonder that anything gets done at all when four adults do 'nothing' over the course of an entire day. I, for one, had a highly productive day," Sesshoumaru said.

"Productive or reproductive?" Abi asked.

A blush. A dropped jaw. A smile. A threatening stare. Then, the cycle repeated with a new configuration. Jokes were made about how bad dogs smelled when wet, how cats liked to lick themselves, how Jaken needed to marry a midget, and how Kagome was the clumsiest girl on the planet. Some invisible chord was struck in the hearts of all present, and warmed the inhabitants of the house with an unspoken realization.

_Home._

Kagome had missed it so much, and it hadn't even been that long since she last descended down the well for tests. This was different in a way though; this was the home she shared with her love, which made her feel grown up in a way she hadn't felt when 'going home' meant going back to her mother's house.

Kagome and Sesshoumaru returned to the bed when Abi and Jaken disappeared again. They were starting grow so suspicious and almost worried about what a cat youkai and a water kappa would be spending so much time doing. Kagome wished she could just write it off as them slipping off to have sex, but she really didn't even think that was physically possible. One thing was clear; any plan of the cat's would involve someone, somewhere meeting their end.

Anyway, Kagome was thankful for the privacy.

"Miko, you are thinking about something," Sesshoumaru purred in her ear, which received a bit of a nibble to fully focus her attention on what they were doing.

Kagome furrowed her brows and absentmindedly placed a hand on his head, pushing it down lower. "Can I ask you something?"

He stopped and waited attentively while Kagome tried to put her thoughts into the correct words. "Hn," he said.

"I know your father had other women. Your mother, who had you. And Izayoi, who he loved. And Abi, which…you know. Are you going to do that to me? I don't want to be your whore, Sesshoumaru. I don't want you to fall so hard in love with me you kill yourself over it either." Kagome said.

Sesshoumaru rolled over and stared at the ceiling, memorizing the scratch marks that marred it. It was a question he had hoped to avoid. On one hand, if he never produced a pure Inu heir, his bloodline and his position as the Inu leader would cease to exist. However, at the point he and Kagome were at, finding redemption among his kin wouldn't prove easy. "My mother was there to produce an heir," he explained.

"I can't give you that, but that doesn't mean I want to share you with some youkai," she sulked.

He kept his gaze fixed on the ceiling, as if the answer was hidden somehow on it. The entire issue of Kagome brought a lot of his beliefs into question, especially when it came to his feelings on hanyou. He hadn't been more than three or four years of age when he began to grasp the fact that humans were banal, filthy, and stupid. The fact that a perfect youkai such would commit such acts with a human disgusted him. The deformed children that were produced from such unions always seemed creepy and unnatural to him.

The warmth of Kagome's body distracted him as she rolled on top of him and straddled his hips. She took each of his hands into hers and held them close to her. "You look completely disgusted right now. Don't I make you happy?"

"Making me happy doesn't make me someone else," Sesshoumaru replied.

Kagome turned to ice on top of him and got out of the bed, turning her back to him. "I'll probably live another sixty years."

The taiyoukai stopped and tilted his head at something that Kagome had clearly missed. "Aging is a degenerative problem," he said.

The miko turned slowly, as if thinking at the same rate her body moved. "But I don't degenerate like a normal person. I heal really fast and…" Silence fell as she realized what the effect of those powers would be, "I'm not going to get old, am I?"

"I don't believe so. To my knowledge a Great Miko has never lived long enough to test the theory," he replied.

Silk slid over silk as Kagome crawled back into the bed and pulled the sheets up to her nose. "We're talking about forever, aren't we?" she asked.

"I only ever think of forever when it concerns you," he whispered.

'Forever' had never seemed like such a scary word until that moment. Kagome loved the Inu beside her to death, but would she if she lived a hundred years? What about two hundred? She sighed and said, "This is too much to deal with right now."

"Indeed," Sesshoumaru replied.

Sesshoumaru felt oddly relieved when Kagome didn't press the issue further and sank into indecision. However, it was his turn to make conditions. "I want pups. Whatever I said about not being a normal woman…forget it. If you wish to be completely exclusive, and I desire to reproduce, there is only one solution that will satisfy us both."

"They would be hanyou. You hate hanyou," Kagome said.

A delicate silver brow raised as Kagome peeled off another layer of his hypocrisy. "I am entitled to change my opinion."

"There's a hanyou named Jinenji that Inuyasha and I befriended. He looks awful, Sesshoumaru. His head is gigantic, and he has bulbous blue eyes that scared me to death at first," Kagome said, spilling a fear she had about someday having hanyou offspring. It wasn't just the danger and physical appearance; she didn't want to have a child that would be considered completely unlovable.

Several minutes went by in silence, as each considered how viable their future as a couple actually was. There were things some things each of them might have to change or give up to fully commit to each other.

"I'm leaving in the morning to search for Naraku. I will be a source of distraction if I stay while you train. For the first few months, you'll have no time to do anything but sleep anyway," Sesshoumaru finally said.

Kagome snuggled up to him, and rested her ear against his chest. The strong thumping of his heart did little to make her any less confused about the complex issues of their relationship or make her less frustrated by the fact he intended to leave her behind. "What if you find him? Will you come get me? I have just as much right to help kill him as everyone else," she said.

"Yes," he lied. He had no intention of finding Naraku or killing him. Naraku was impossible to find unless he wanted to be found, and Sesshoumaru was getting tired of showing up to a battle because Naraku wanted him to do so. As more conflicts with him unfolded, Sesshoumaru became more convinced either Kikyou or Kagome would be required to actually kill him, unless he could completely cut the Shikon Jewel out of Naraku's body. Anyone else handling the jewel in its impure state would probably be controlled by it.

What Sesshoumaru really intended to do was find Kohaku and keep him safe. Not only for Kohaku's sake, but because it was the only minimal amount of control Sesshoumaru could exert on where and when the final battle would take place. Since Kohaku's shard was the last in play, Naraku was probably already hunting him, and Sesshoumaru knew the boy would never stay with his sister for long.

In his mind, Sesshoumaru had pictured Kohaku as a potential future love for Rin. Well, she already loved him, which was obvious from the way she acted around him. Rin would lie to Sesshoumaru with no guilt at all for Kohaku's sake, even though he tried to kill her. When Kohaku was around, Rin's attention shifted from her Sesshoumaru-sama to her Kohaku-kun, and she tried her best to take care of him.

Once, while Sesshoumaru was stealthily supervising her food gathering, Kohaku found her.

"_Kohaku! Don't worry, Rin won't tell Sesshoumaru-sama! Are you okay? Are you all by yourself? I have some food; we can share it if you want!" Rin happily said to Kohaku, who simply stood there and stared at her. "What's wrong, Kohaku?" she asked._

_Kohaku nervously took a step toward her, wondering why talking to someone else made him more nervous than battle. "Nothing," he replied._

_Rin put the melon in her hands down and took Kohaku's hand. "It's okay, Kohaku. Everything will be better soon! Sesshoumaru-sama will kill Naraku!" She hugged him just the same way she did Sesshoumaru, but her arms wrapped around the shorter, smaller body of Kohaku, making it feel very different than the hugs she gave her lord._

_Kohaku stood stunned for a minute, and then put a shaking hand on her back as his chin rested on the top of her head. He had never been so embarrassed or elated in his life._

Sesshoumaru lay awake, remembering it all so vividly. The blush on Kohaku's face, Rin's little gasp, and the way they broke up when a tree trunk snapped in his claws. There was a surge of paternal rage at the contact, which only intensified when Kohaku's body started to smell a little more grown up. He had accepted it then, even though the exchange seemed a bit alien and complex for people so young.

Kohaku had felt the pure, innocent light that in Rin and seemed naturally drawn to her. As far as Sesshoumaru knew, Rin was the only beautiful thing in Kohaku's life, and he wasn't at an age that he really understood the strangely balanced, undeniably natural connection he shared with Rin.

Rin, on the other hand, was a young female, and being such, was shockingly perceptive. Dozens of times she talked about growing up and marrying Kohaku. How many kids would they have? What would they name them? How tall would Kohaku be? Where do babies come from, anyway?

When Sesshoumaru ran out of memories, he became painfully aware of the absence that still broke his heart. Rin was supposed to grow up, marry Kohaku, find out where babies come from, and then have some.

'Happily ever after' was how Rin worded it.

Kagome emerged from a half-sleeping state when she sensed Sesshoumaru's grief. "What's wrong, Honey?"

"Rin wasn't supposed to die," Sesshoumaru replied.

A warm, flat hand rubbed up and down his chest and abs in a comforting motion. "Rin seemed very happy with you. You know, despite the fact you can be a real jerk, you have an odd capability to make girls happy."

"Everyone has a little 'jerk' in them, as you put it," Sesshoumaru teased as he kissed her on the cheek. "You, however, are about to have a big, hard—"

Kagome snorted and rolled on top of him. "You really are arrogant. Eek!"

In an instant, Kagome was on her back, and Sesshoumaru was pushing her legs apart. "Scream for me," he purred.

"No!" Kagome playfully pouted, clutching her knee caps when a long, slow tongue deliberately traced some invisible path in between her legs. She clenched her teeth and closed her eyes, unwilling to yield and give him victory. How these little games came about was a mystery even to her. What she did know was that she would not scream!

Kagome woke up at dawn for her training, only to find Sesshoumaru was gone and had taken Jaken with him. She dressed and ate in a dazed silence, and managed to finally say 'Good morning,' after a couple of cups of tea.

"Do you know anything about hanyou? What makes some of them, you know…ugly," Kagome blurted out.

A white eyebrow cocked and Abi shrugged. "Your pups will look fine," she said.

The miko tapped her fingers on the table. "How can you be sure? I've seen a hanyou with a head bigger than my body!"

"When Sesshoumaru screws you, he's in his human form, which is nearly identical to human physiology. His only differences are coloring, claws, and ears. Those properties could come out either human or Inu. Ugly hanyou are made from ugly youkai and bizarre sexual misadventures by human women," Abi explained.

Kagome let out a sigh of relief. That explanation made a lot of sense, genetically. Sesshoumaru probably had more genes than she did, and the ones that weren't really like hers would go either human or Inu.

"Jaken thought someone was torturing you with all the noise you were making last night," the cat added.

Instant shame.

The next ninety-three days were spent pushing her body as far as it would go, and then going a little farther the next day. It was hard, harder than Kagome had ever imagined it would be. She fell out of trees, nearly drowned, rolled off a cliff, was cut by countless branches and rocks, and didn't have a day that didn't make her pass out when it was over.

Slowly, certain things became easier. The long climb to the house became shorter, she did a cartwheel across the wooden beam she had fallen off more times to count, she stopped running into trees even when they grew very close together, and she could run for hours without fainting or cramping up.

With that ease came self-confidence. Hundreds of climbs, jumps, sprints, stretches, and triumphs showed her exactly what she was capable of, so when she thought, 'I can do this!' she knew she truly could. Kagome was very aware of her limits; she wasn't as strong as most demons were. She wasn't really bothered by this, since Abi explained that her physical fitness and capability was really only the key to using weapons in a highly lethal manner.

And on the ninety-fourth day, disaster struck.

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**Please Review!**

Special thanks to Deadly Regret, Britt-sempai, Dragoness Fohama, Chelsea, xXNo-Life-kingXx, sayuri-girl, llebreknit, Kagome357, cleoclaudia, LadySafire, silencio1111, supersillee06, VampireGoddess12Xx, taijia, ArizonaBay, ChibiSan1092, Ginzou Tsuki, 43InuAsha, aimdiscord, amadoni, Yuki-hime, kagome past and present, musicallady1, Laina Aurelius, 6th House Miko, dedanaan, shadowblade-tara, flirtymiyu, eternallove485, and kittyb78!


	10. The Ninety Fourth Day

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**Atonement**  
_By Miss Kagura  
_Chapter Ten — The Ninety-Fourth Day

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**Three Months Later…**

Kaede looked over her shoulder to the somber hanyou watching her work and handed a basket of tomatoes to Shippou. "Take these inside to Sango and Miroku," she said as she took another empty basket and knelt next to the next plant. When several minutes had passed, she pushed the basket to Inuyasha. "These aren't going to harvest themselves, you know."

Inuyasha sat down beside her, grumbling half-heartedly as he reached out for a ripe, plump tomato. Deadly claws instantly turned the tomato into a mess of juice and torn flesh; Inuyasha stared at it, thinking about how fitting it was. He always destroyed fragile things. "What's the matter with Sango?" he finally asked.

"Use your fingers, but be careful not to slice them," Kaede said as she deposited another red fruit into her basket. She hated to be the one who had to tell him the news. It was cause for celebration for everyone else except Inuyasha. "Sango is carrying Miroku's child. Her place is here now, Inuyasha. She has ceased to be a demon slayer and has become a mother for the time being."

The soft pads of Inuyasha's fingers braced a tomato and plucked it safely from the plant. Sango, Miroku, Shippou, Kagome, and Kirara had all grown under his leadership in the collapsing pack that hunted Naraku. Now that they were all mature, they were slowly being removed from the life that made them who they had become. "Miroku will need to stay here with her, I guess," he said.

"Aye. Their happiness will be in your hands, Inuyasha. You have to find and kill Naraku so Miroku will live to hold his child," Kaede said.

Some part of him still couldn't let go of the dreams he had before Kagome was taken right out from under him. In some lost part of his mind, he and Kagome lived in a hut next to Sango and Miroku, and their children played together. Even months later, he sometimes thought about it, and it hurt like hell.

The hanyou shrugged. "I'm alone again then? Good, less for me to worry about!"

When the tomato in his shaking hand popped, Kaede sighed and shook her head. "Unnecessary, Inuyasha. We were both left alone in the world when my sister Kikyou died. You were given the gift of being able to sleep through the loneliness, but it became my life."

Inuyasha gave the old woman a bitter smirk. "If the plan Kikyou and I made had worked, I guess I'd be old like you, huh?"

"Aye. You might be dying like me as well," she said as her voice cracked.

"Wh-What? What are you talking about? You're just fine!" Inuyasha yelled.

Old hands went back to their work, and for the first time, Inuyasha realized how tired and how old Kaede looked. The child he remembered climbing trees and pestering him and Kikyou had disappeared into the body of an old and exhausted woman.

"I sense that my time is near," She replied, neglecting to tell the hanyou about the intense headaches, the nausea, and the way her vision had blurred over the past weeks. She knew what it meant; she had nursed too many dying people not to know how it would end. For the first time in years, she was afraid, but it wasn't because she was dying. Her fears were for the hanyou she had come to think of as her delinquent, rude adopted son.

Somehow, it was a comfort to be able to feel dread about something other than the village she had guarded for so long. That would be left in the hands of Miroku, and she had no doubt that he would do well.

Inuyasha's claws dug into the soil, clenching it tightly. "Are you sick? You dumb old hag, you should be inside resting, not working!"

"The child Sango carries will live each day as one day closer to death. We will all die because we are mortal, and you will be left alone," Kaede explained.

_Alone…_

Inuyasha's ears flattened in despair as Kaede reminded him that loneliness was the theme of his life. While letting someone go hurt badly enough, the sharp, painful silence they left behind was so much worse. "I know what it's like to go to sleep and know nobody cares if I wake up again. I can't go back to that. I'd rather die," he whispered in a voice Kaede could barely hear.

"You mustn't let that happen. You push all of us away, Inuyasha. Even if someone did want to love you, you wouldn't let them," Kaede said.

Another tomato ruptured in Inuyasha's hand, and he quickly apologized, trying to change the subject. "Fuck, I destroy everything I touch."

"Promise me you'll let yourself love again as well as be loved," Kaede said.

Inuyasha frowned and looked away; he never made promises to anyone. His last real promise had been to Kikyou, and that had indirectly wrecked his life, pushing Kagome farther and farther away until he could no longer reach her. This was different though; this was the only thing she would ask of him. "I promise," he said, unable to look at her.

He left at daybreak the next morning to resume his hunt for Naraku. This time, however, he was totally alone, and his companions were left in a hut to build their new family in Kaede's village. Even Kirara and Shippou had stayed with them, and Inuyasha knew he couldn't blame them. Because he wanted them to be happy, he knew he had to kill Naraku. Miroku needed to see the evidence that a woman actually had agreed to bear his child, and Sango needed to know her brother was safe.

The silence was like torture.

He thought about Kagome, about Kikyou, and about all the things he had done wrong to end up so utterly alone after managing to build up a pack. He worried about Kaede, and thought about Sango. When Miroku had found out the night before, the joy in his face, his eyes, and his tone had been indescribable.

Inuyasha was left feeling guilty by the almost hateful jealousy he found in his heart right then.

"Ooof!"

Inuyasha was ripped from his thoughts as Abi plummeted into the ground in front of him. She'd never admit she tripped; cats were far too graceful. She managed to land on her feet, and her ego took all the real damage. It left her standing face-to-face with the much taller hanyou, looking into eyes she hadn't seen in so long she had almost forgotten how intense they were. It was his likeness to his father that had caused her blunder in the first place. Inuyasha had the same hair, same eyes, and same face as his father.

"Were you following me, Bitch?" Inuyasha yelled.

Dumbstruck green eyes narrowed angrily and an open palm made contact with Inuyasha's cheek. He had also inherited his father's mouth, however unintentionally. "All you need is a talking sword from Hell and no one would be able to tell the difference," she grumbled adding, "I live here, what's your excuse?"

He was suddenly grabbed from behind, and his eyes were covered as an all-too-familiar voice broke the silence and his heart. "Guess who?" Kagome chirped excitedly.

"Kagome? How come I didn't smell or hear you?" Inuyasha asked as the miko sat perched on his back, hugging his neck.

"Herbs! Where's everyone else?" she answered.

Inuyasha grabbed her arm, holding it in place when she tried to slide off his back. "I'm traveling alone now," he said.

Right at that moment, a black cloud passed by overhead, and Inuyasha immediately ran after it. "Naraku's scent!" he shouted, running across the tree line with Kagome holding tightly onto his back. "You missed a ton, Kagome. Sango is knocked up, so everyone else is playing house in Kaede's village!" he yelled.

The grip around his neck tightened. "Really…what's that?" she asked as they came to a field. The cloud of miasma cleared around something that seemed like a youkai. Behind the youkai stood Sesshoumaru with a most displeased expression, as if the last thing he wanted was to deal with more of Naraku's incarnations.

"Get back!" Sesshoumaru shouted to Ah-Un, who backed up quickly, carrying Jaken and Kohaku farther away.

A sharp tentacle flew by Sesshoumaru and only narrowly missed Kohaku, who was thrown into the air by the dragon, who thankfully had faster reflexes than the tentacle. Kohaku's fall was broken when he was caught by one of the tentacles and hoisted him up, high above the battle. Sesshoumaru's leapt to his rescue, but just as he reached for Kohaku, three razor sharp extensions of the creature's body impaled him.

"Tch! Who are you?" Sesshoumaru growled.

A cruel, fanged smirk formed on the monster's lips. "I am Magatsuhi, the dark will of the Shikon No Tama."

Inuyasha ran across the clearing and leapt into the air, cutting his brother free. "You're gonna be one dead asshole in a few minutes!" he yelled.

Magatsuhi realized he was trapped in between an irate hanyou with a huge sword, a taiyoukai, and a priestess, who was aiming an arrow at him when he finally turned. One look from Magatsuhi and Kagome went limp and fainted on the spot. Then, he knocked the hanyou out of the way and prepared to deal with Sesshoumaru as he transformed into his true form.

Sesshoumaru snapped Magatsuhi's head off before he even saw the taiyoukai move his way, but his decapitated body remained standing, spewing miasma in all directions. When Inuyasha saw the miasma, he leapt and managed to free Kohaku. As soon as Kohaku was out of Magatsuhi's reach, Inuyasha drew his Tessaiga, only to be faced with his brother totally intertwined in tentacles, nearly choking as the slowly crushed him.

Magatsuhi smiled. "Don't worry about your brother. Even if he dies, he'll be reborn…as a part of Naraku!" he said.

With that comment, Sesshoumaru switched back to his human form and dropped from the entangling tentacles with ease. He was bloody, he was getting angry, and when he drew Tokijin, he intended to use it to kill. As soon as he had it completely unsheathed, Magatsuhi's detached head hovered in front of him. Sesshoumaru snarled and thrust Tokijin into his mouth.

"Die vermin!" the taiyoukai exclaimed.

"You forget that this sword was forged from Goshinki, a piece of this same body. It shall return now," Magatsuhi said as his fangs chomped down on Tokijin, which shattered in his mouth. Sesshoumaru tried to pull the sword out of Magatsuhi, but it was stuck. He let it go and growled as Magatsuhi chewed up and swallowed his entire sword, letting only the hilt fall to the ground.

"Take Kagome and get her away from here!" Sesshoumaru shouted at his brother, who wouldn't have listened under any ordinary circumstances. However, with Kagome unconscious on the ground, Kohaku in trouble, and Sesshoumaru determined to kill himself, he went to her side.

Abi, who had realized there was something else in the area she couldn't actually see, took the herbal concoction she had given to Kagome during training to evade youkai senses and threw the entire bottle into the middle of the battle. Instantly, Magatsuhi and Sesshoumaru lost nearly all of their senses. Temporarily blinded and unable to smell the body Magatsuhi borrowed from Naraku, Sesshoumaru suddenly became aware of the otherwise undetectable presence that lingered over the battle. Tenseiga started to rumble at his side and Sesshoumaru sailed through the air as he unsheathed it. The blade made a deep, clean cut across Magatsuhi's real face, which had been hidden by the body he had made from Naraku.

When the wind blew the herbal haze away, Magatsuhi realized Kohaku had vanished and wrapped his body around Sesshoumaru. "You've put on a good show, but it seems my prey has escaped. I'll just do away with you and your whore now and finish this," he said.

The tentacles formed a cocoon around Sesshoumaru, who was trapped inside. His claws tore at Magatsuhi's flesh, as he considered the consequences of not escaping. There was something so precious at stake that if he couldn't get out to save her, he didn't want to escape at all. For Kagome's sake, he had to be great. He had to stand up to Magatsuhi on his own and slay him. He didn't want to do it for power, or reputation, or to be favorably compared to his father, or because he was stubborn. Pushed to his limit, Magatsuhi had driven every selfish desire for power out of his mind.

Tenseiga detected the change in Sesshoumaru's heart and began to glow, calling Bakusaiga to their master.

In Toutousai's workshop, the old youkai awoke to the brilliant light of Bakusaiga being summoned and watched as it flew out of the cave and went westward to Sesshoumaru. It streaked across the sky, leaving a brilliant trail of light behind.

In the woods on the other side of the clearing, Abi leapt from one tree to another, carrying Kohaku away from Magatsuhi. The scent of Naraku following caused her to put the boy down in the crook of a branch, and then wait. One of Naraku's incarnations, Byakuya, flew by on his paper crane. "That was quite a trick you pulled, Pussycat. Now hand over the boy unless you want to end up on Naraku's bad side too," he said.

Abi stared at him for a moment, and then unsheathed long, curved, deadly cat claws.

Three seconds later, Byakuya was staring up at Abi as he lay on the ground, which was littered with tiny scraps of paper. She turned and reclaimed Kohaku from the tree, which only confused Byakuya. "You're not going to fight me?" he asked.

Once upon a time, before the Inu no Taisho was a general and long before he had sons to frustrate him, he had just been Touga. He had a sword from Hell, and an inspiring amount of ambition. When all was said and done, he had become greater than even he had imagined. If he looked over his shoulder, however, all he could see was the trail of bodies that had made the difference between 'strong,' and 'unforgettable.'

Byakuya was merely a small part of the mass of youkai who would die to make Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha strong. His life, for all practical purposes, ended the first time he battled against the brothers. All that remained unknown was how long he'd be allowed to continue living before he died like all the others had.

"You are already dead. It would be a waste of my time," she replied.

The scent of Tenseiga swept through the trees, and both looked up to see light coming from Magatsuhi's body. It was so bright that it shined even through his flesh. Bakusaiga flew to it, and then neatly pierced the flesh of the cocoon that held Sesshoumaru. The taiyoukai's striped hand shook as he reached out and took the blade.

Bakusaiga pulsated in his grasp, demanding his power. Whatever power Sesshoumaru had felt while wielding the stolen Tessaiga so long before seemed insignificant to what he felt coming from Bakusaiga. This blade, unlike the one he had coveted, smelled only of him, and not of his father. It was his own weapon, an extension of himself, and it was totally in sync with his will.

Sesshoumaru let his power flow into the sword, and then stepped out of his father's shadow into the realm of legend. With one slash from Bakusaiga, Magatsuhi's body exploded into tiny pieces and Sesshoumaru flew through the wrecked flesh and switched swords, ready to land a killing blow on his real body.

Magatsuhi attempted in vain to reassemble his borrowed body, but it was broken into far too many fragments. Even if he could simply put it back together, everything that had been touched by Bakusaiga degenerated into nothing. The blow from the sword had infected his flesh with some sort of degenerative condition.

The conviction, righteous indignation, and courage in Sesshoumaru's eyes and the sword in his hand were enough to make Magatsuhi tremble. The fight was over, and even Magatsuhi knew it. He made his escape, only narrowly missed by Tenseiga as he quickly located Kohaku nearby and entered his shard, taking control of Kohaku.

Kohaku's kusarigama neatly pierced Abi's chest and left her a bleeding mess. Superhuman power supplied by the Shikon shard allowed Magatsuhi to speed toward Naraku. Deep within Kohaku's mind, the battle between Magatsuhi and Kohaku raged. If anyone had known how hard Kohaku fought in the short distance between Sesshoumaru and Naraku, they might have understood the choice he made when his body reached Naraku. Had they understood whatever little strength he had left had been spent pushing Magatsuhi out of his mind, they would have been proud of him.

It was over. The blast from Bakusaiga caused Magatuhi and everything he touched to degenerate fall apart, including his own body. The skin on Kohaku's fingers was starting to rot and peel even as Magatsuhi told him what was happening to him.

Kohaku closed his eyes, and listened to the chain of his weapon as it swung.

Naraku had destroyed and rebuilt Kohaku's mind so many times, the life he lived had faded. All he remembered sometimes was his sister's face, and what he had done. He was haunted by the sound of his father's body being ripped apart by his own hand, of his sister's crying pleas, and the fact he knew it would eventually come to this. He had let her down.

But it was finally over, and he realized he could let go.

Kohaku took a last breath and gave Naraku exactly what he wanted.

The kusarigama ripped the Shikon shard from Kohaku's back and threw it into Naraku like a dart.

Naraku watched in confusion as the flesh disappeared off Kohaku's body and a small skeleton landed on the ground. The boy had killed himself; despite every promise Naraku knew he had made to be strong, he had died by his own hand. What purpose did it serve?

Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha approached him and realized that Kohaku's skeleton lay at Naraku's feet. "You bastard!" Inuyasha screamed.

"You're too late, Inuyasha. Now I possess the entire Shikon Jewel. Perhaps you would like to witness it become whole again?" Naraku taunted.

Inuyasha reached for his sword, but a glare from his brother stopped him.

The shard disappeared into Naraku's body and began to fuse with the rest of the jewel while Naraku gloated. "Kohaku took his own life. It seems I have won. With this, neither of you stand a chance," he said. The sliver of Kohaku's shard joined the rest of the jewel, and transferred the degenerative energy Magatsuhi had infected it with to the rest of the jewel.

Naraku felt it instantly. His body burned, and limbs that had been constructed from thousands of other youkai seemed to suddenly be made of rubber.

Sesshoumaru gave Naraku a cruel smirk. "Killed by a little human boy? How shameful."

They watched as Naraku's body began to fall apart, ripping at the invisible seams that held his conglomerate form together, starting at his chest where the jewel rested. It was horrifying, and would have made any regular person sick. Lumps of flesh fell to the ground around him. When Naraku could no longer maintain the impenetrable barrier around his person, he clawed into his chest and removed the Shikon Jewel, which he hurled at Inuyasha. Inuyasha ducked and let it hit the ground behind him and roll aimlessly through the forest.

Naraku hissed as he fell to his knees and stared up at a diamond-plated Tessaiga.

* * *

**Three Days Later**

Kagome ignored a feline growl and wrapped the cloth bandages tighter. After killing Naraku, everyone had returned to Abi's house except Inuyasha, who left with Kohaku's bones and the purified Shikon No Tama. No one, including Inuyasha, knew what he was going to wish. She might have gone with him, but it had been three months since she had been with Sesshoumaru. As much as she hated neglecting Sango, she needed to be with Sesshoumaru for the time being.

Kohaku's death bothered Sesshoumaru more than he was willing to admit, and Kagome knew it.

Sesshoumaru felt disappointed with himself. There was an idea of Rin and Kohaku once, of happy human children that would grow into even happier adults. There was the boy that carried her through the pit of hell, and the girl that would do anything to make him feel better. They balanced each other out perfectly, and the taiyoukai had come to believe that they shared that dream, even if it was never spoken. Children always had such big dreams.

When Kohaku had found out Rin had died, something in him changed. He couldn't bear to face his own sister and had no one else in the world to go, so Kohaku's fight was about the future. It was to think of a time later on when everything would be all right. The little girl that was supposed to make his life worth living had died, leaving Kohaku without the dreams that kept him fighting.

In a world where Kohaku had no control at all, he had taken his life back from Naraku and killed the hanyou.

No one would ever know the respect Sesshoumaru felt for the small human boy.

"You didn't fail him, Sesshoumaru," Kagome said.

Sesshoumaru frowned at her; why did Kagome always feel like she had to make him feel better? "I know," he replied softly.

Abi and Sesshoumaru jerked to their feet at the same time. "You smell it too," Sesshoumaru said.

"I don't know that scent. It's definitely Inu though," she replied.

Sesshoumaru nodded and leapt to the ground, following the mysterious scent. As he drew closer to it, he realized he knew the scent quite well. It just lacked the humanity that had previously defined it. He came upon Inuyasha, who was leaning against a tree, shaking. "You used the Shikon Jewel to become a full demon," he said.

Inuyasha nodded, clutching his ears. His senses were overloaded, and he was painfully aware of things he had never known even existed. The strength in his limbs was unimaginable and uncontrollable, and poison dripped from his claws.

The only relief Sesshoumaru found in Inuyasha's obvious anguish is that he seemed generally coherent, unlike the berserk youkai Inuyasha changed into when his youki raged out of control. Had anyone else encountered Inuyasha, they might have been killed accidentally by the out-of-control taiyoukai that his little brother had become.

"Did you think the transition from hanyou to taiyoukai would be easy?" Sesshoumaru asked.

Inuyasha grimaced as Sesshoumaru's intense aura cut against his. "P-Please help me," he whined.

There was no one else.

Inuyasha hadn't wished to become the most powerful demon in the world; he only asked to become a full-blooded youkai, and because of who his father was, that pushed him so far above all the other youkai. The only person who had any grasp on what he was dealing with was the last person that would never show him mercy.

Once again, Sesshoumaru held Inuyasha's life in his hands. This time, though, he chose differently.

Inuyasha had taken Rin.  
Sesshoumaru had taken Kagome.

There was no longer a reason to continue hating Inuyasha. Even Sesshoumaru knew it would only destroy both of them if he kept pining over Rin and punishing his brother for taking her from him.

They would have to do something about the living arrangements, since Abi's home was overpopulated and he suspected she deal with it in her own way if necessary.

"Come," Sesshoumaru said.

* * *

**Please Review**

Author's note: If you don't keep up with the manga, this chapter might have been a bit confusing. The point is that Sesshoumaru has a really badass sword (it killed 2000 demons in one frame in the manga) that keeps things from regenerating, as well as anything his foes come into contact with after they've been struck by Bakusaiga.

Special thanks to Dragoness Fohama, Goddess de la mort, restive silence, LoveANIME4, sesshyandkags4ever, sayuri-girl, BlazingMidnightRain, no life king, Taylor Ann Nicole, Britt-sempai, mangadreams, VampireGoddess12Xx. Dana Daidouji, flirtymiyu, cleoclaudia, kzb636, Laina Aurelius, kimoukai, kittyb78, TAJE, Foxfire Inari, ArizonaBay, LadySafire, 43InuAsha, Gothcat, shadowblade-tara, llebreknit, Amadoni, supersillee06, kagome past and present, Mikazuki Hime, musicallady1, and kumikonhan!


	11. Purpose

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* * *

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**Atonement**  
_By Miss Kagura  
_Chapter Eleven — Purpose

* * *

Kagome put her hand out and watched a snowflake melt into the tiniest drop of moisture. She looked over the edge of the wooden bridge she was standing on into the abysmal fog that never left the forest. The snow seemingly disappeared into the thick white mist, but a recent trip to the ground revealed that almost two feet of snow blanketed the Youkai Forest. The forest had become quiet as its inhabitants either hibernated or took shelter from the blistering chill and the sharp wind that came with it. Barren, foggy, and frozen, the woodland seemed unaffected by the cold days that passed, as immune to time as the youkai that inhabited it. 

The solution to the living situation had been comical in concept, but surprisingly convenient. Where there used to be one house build among the trees, there were now several small ones built around the large center structure, all connected by wooden bridges. A cistern at the highest part of the forest provided her with very cold, but very clean running water. Their home was safe; invisible from the ground and too high in the air to carry scents to other noses. She and Sesshoumaru had practically fallen off the face of the planet.

"Dammit, Bitch!"

…With Inuyasha, of course.

Kagome looked over to the wooden beam that she used during training to see Abi and Inuyasha practicing bojutsu on it, despite the fact that it was completely covered in ice. Inuyasha locked her staff with his and shoved hard, forcing the cat to slide across the beam until she hit the tree that held it up. Abi smirked and ran at him, diving at the last moment and tangling his legs in her staff as she slid in between them.

Inuyasha grabbed the beam with both hands and dug his claws into the ice to keep from falling.

"I'm sorry, what did you just call me?" Abi asked.

Inuyasha growled back at her, "You heard me, BITCH!"

"Hm," Abi said as she flipped the staff in the air and swung it at Inuyasha's head like one would swing a golf club. Satisfaction sparkled in her eyes at the sound the staff made when it cracked against his skull and sent him plummeting toward the ground.

Kagome sighed and finished walking to the main house. The youkai were so rough with each other; the taiyoukai were especially brutal, although it rarely seemed cruel anymore. Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha had leveled parts of the forest without ever unsheathing their swords and then returned home acting as if nothing had happened. She had never felt so safe in her life; not even an idiot would bother attacking them.

She was so angry with Inuyasha when Sesshoumaru brought him home a month before. At first, all she could think about was how he betrayed his humanity, but as more time passed, Kagome didn't fail to notice how much more clearly he seemed to think. There had always been turmoil in Inuyasha's mind because of his mixed blood, but now, he seemed so much more deliberate in his actions. When she watched them spar, Kagome felt like she was watching a butterfly slowly free itself from a cocoon.

Kagome knelt next to the fire burning in the center of the kitchen and eating area, and put a pan over it. Venison fillets lay stacked on a cutting board, caught by Sesshoumaru earlier that afternoon. She began to cook them, listening to the sizzle in the pan until someone else entered the house.

"Hey Honey, did you have a nice day?" Kagome asked.

Sesshoumaru knelt next to her and slipped an arm around her as she leaned into his chest. "It was as pleasurable as so many that preceded it. I watched my miko train in the morning, hunted in the afternoon, and took a nap," he replied.

She kissed him on the cheek and smiled. "We can't do this forever you know. We have to rejoin the rest of the world eventually."

"I think not," he lazily replied.

Kagome pouted and crossed her arms. "All right, all right. Naraku is dead. Now what are we supposed to do?"

"Have lots of sex," Sesshoumaru replied.

"I was being serious!" Kagome exclaimed.

A warm hand snaked up the thick white coat she wore to ward off the cold as his hot breath reached her ear. "So was I, my little miko," he whispered.

The hand disappeared as Abi and Inuyasha entered, drawn by the smell of food.

"Keh, would you mind not doing that anywhere we eat?" Inuyasha asked as a blush spread over his cheeks.

Abi knelt at the table and decided it was time to embarrass the other brother as well, so that they would have matching pink cheeks. "You know, the first time I met Sesshoumaru, he peed on me. He was about this big," she said, holding her hands apart about thirty centimeters. "He was little growling furball."

Narrow amber eyes threatened violence from across the table. "Silence."

"I bet you were a cute puppy!" Kagome cooed.

Sesshoumaru felt dread when light-hearted mischief flashed in her eyes. Kagome smiled deviously at her beloved and glanced to Inuyasha. "I wonder if Inuyasha was cuter though, with those puppy ears. I really miss being able to touch them."

The two brothers locked themselves in a heated amber-on-amber stare; neither could stand the idea of being second to the other and the girls were well aware of that. Kagome had to fight the urge to fall down laughing at how they were on the brink of violence over which made a cuter baby. She wasn't even sure how many times she had done this, but it never failed to amuse her. The tension was part of the Sesshoumaru-Inuyasha dynamic, and the more times it was activated over frivolous things, the less hateful they seemed to be toward one another.

It was a slow process, and would probably take years for Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha to truly accept each other, but it was happening.

Sesshoumaru might have hated Inuyasha's human mother, but when he thought of humans, his mind would settle on some of the other humans he really knew. There was Rin, who brought him joy and flowers, hugs and smiles. She loved Kohaku, who took control of his own destiny and used it to kill Naraku. Of course, there was also Kagome, but it went without saying that he respected and loved her. What he felt when he thought of humans had changed because he had seen them at their absolute best, and it made up for the fragile, weak Izayoi.

Kagome was strong, defiant, and brave. He loved her to death, but knew she was smart and courageous enough that it would never come to that.

After dinner ended, Abi and Jaken disappeared to catch more of the youkai fish they had been hunting, Kagome returned to the little house she shared with Sesshoumaru, and the two brothers found themselves alone.

Without speaking, the sparring match started. Sesshoumaru leapt from one ice-covered branch to another, trying to cause his brother to slip on the slick limbs.

The snow suddenly started to fall much faster as a winter blizzard settled over the forest.

Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru could not longer see each other when they were only a few meters apart. Sesshoumaru smirked and ripped a long, jagged icicle from a branch and hurled it through the snow to the place his senses said his little brother stood.

Inuyasha leapt into the air when the spike shattered against the tree next to him, and tried to figure out where it had come from. The wind kept him from hearing Sesshoumaru's quiet movements as he moved around the woods. The elder taiyoukai led the younger over two kilometers from their home, and finally stopped as his boots slid gracefully across a frozen lake.

Inuyasha landed on the snow-covered bank and crouched. Something caught his attention; the smell of clay and soil and the woman he once promised his life to.

Sesshoumaru's nose twitched as the strong wind carried Kikyou's scent. "Stay," he said.

"I wasn't planning on leaving!" Inuyasha replied as he lunged at Sesshoumaru.

Sesshoumaru realized then that Inuyasha's wish hadn't been because he wanted to be strong, or he wanted that badly to be a demon. "You made your wish to be free from your affections for that clay woman. Your human blood was drawn to her." The disdainful glare set them back a month, as if all the progress they had made was built on a lie. His brother had changed who he was because he couldn't get over a dead woman. "It is the same as Naraku, pulling out his own heart so Kikyou cannot control it." His lip curled into a feral snarl and he dealt the final blow to the former hanyou, "Pathetic."

The unspoken rules and the unstable peace they had found were broken as Tessaiga transformed and Inuyasha swung it at Sesshoumaru, who blocked it with Bakusaiga. "You don't know what you're talking about! She was ruining me!" Inuyasha hissed when he was centimeters from his brother's face.

Sesshoumaru pushed him back and pierced the ice with Bakusaiga, which glowed for just a second as cracks suddenly formed and spread all over the lake's surface. The ice broke apart into sharp pieces that floated over the dangerously cold water below. "You are weak," he said as he leapt from one small glacier to another, and threw a youki whip into Inuyasha's cheek.

"Yeah? I'd like to see how well you'd do if that stupid girl suddenly came back to life and wanted to be your pet again!" Inuyasha shouted back.

He knew instantly he'd pushed Sesshoumaru too far. Sesshoumaru stood there, staring at him with feral red eyes and shaking hands.

"What would you do if she cried out for you, and told you how much she missed you? Hell, what would you do if she gave you a hug and told you she needed you?" Inuyasha continued.

Inuyasha barely cleared the radius of Bakusaiga's attack as Sesshoumaru's trembling hand came down again. "Be quiet! Rin would still be alive if it weren't for your incapability to wield your weapon! She was a child!"

"I was younger than her when you abandoned me. Hell, I was younger than she was when you poisoned me and left me to die. You're such a fucking hypocrite! You did way worse to me!" he exclaimed when he landed right behind his brother on a chunk of ice.

Sesshoumaru had never once compared his own conduct toward Inuyasha to Rin. Images flashed in his head of a child begging for food, for protection, for a brother…and then blood, poison, bruises, and abandonment. "You didn't die," he finally said.

"It was an accident! You treat me like I did it on purpose, like I'm some awful bastard that hurt a kid because I hated her. You treat me like I acted like _you_ did to me," Inuyasha growled.

Old wounds lay open and bleeding in a heated moment in the blistering cold; neither of them regretted a thing they had done. Thousands of hurtful memories resurfaced and as Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha stared hatefully at one another, a mental montage of the grief that they had caused one another slowly played.

Missing a father.  
Going hungry.  
Denied an inheritance.  
Rejected.  
A lost arm.  
A hole to the chest.  
A smiling girl.  
A lost future.

Tessaiga and Bakusaiga met, pushed by the feuding brothers to their absolute limits. The glow of dueling youki grew and grew, until the charge at the point the two blades met reached a point it would kill whoever gave in. Still, they continued, pushing into the fight with grinding teeth and bulging biceps. The burning hate between them had finally reached a long-awaited and horrifying climax, demanding that only one would walk away.

All the years of loathing and violence, they had wanted this moment. Not because either of them were particularly excited about killing the other, but because it would finally bring closure to the issues that continued to haunt them.

From the bank of the lake, Kikyou stood, watching the taiyoukai she once loved locked in a match that would either kill him or his brother. She heard everything, and felt broken in a way that could not be fixed. Inuyasha could have wished her to be human, but instead, he had made a wish to emancipate himself from her. She wasn't sure if it was due to some wisdom he had finally grasped, or if it was a desperate attempt to truly be free.

People lived and died, and it was natural, even when the end came unexpectedly. For every dead person that walked among the living, people were hurt constantly. Kohaku, the Shichinintai, and even her own existence were evidence about something she had been wise to in life.

Most of the humans she knew in life had passed on, including Kaede. The man who caused her death had also moved into the Netherworld. Her last tie to the world of the living, Inuyasha's love, had been severed by the very hands that once held her and the jewel that was supposed to make them happy.

Kikyou put out a hand, and wished she could feel how cold the snow was.

She watched crimson liquid start to drip from Inuyasha's hands and realized he was going to lose the duel. The only thing she could do was give him the chance to survive, and understanding the pain she had caused him, hoped that she might be successful.

Kikyou took a single arrow, and aimed it for Bakusaiga. It started to glow with her spiritual power, and she channeled more to the arrow. She gave it every bit of energy she had left, and held her arm still as the energy that held the souls in her body left her. The souls began to escape, and just as she was about to faint, she let the arrow go.

Two sets of amber eyes saw the arrow heading for them, but were helpless to stop it. Kikyou's arrow struck the tip of Bakusaiga and purified only a portion of the massive energy, throwing what was left back at Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru. It was more than enough to cause them both extreme amounts of harm and render them unconscious.

The chunk of ice they had been fighting on began to crack down the middle and Kikyou watched in horror as it broke and sent both Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha plummeting to the bottom of the freezing lake, weighed down by the swords the swords each still clutched tightly, even while unconscious. Kikyou had no strength left and fell forward into the freezing water, following Inuyasha to her icy grave. Her let go of the last thing that bound her to the earth and stretched out a hand, unable to reach Inuyasha.

Had the two brothers been conscious, or even aware of what was happening, they might have realized that their hate had finally consumed them.

At the house, Kagome was reading a scroll while lounging in the bed she shared with Sesshoumaru. The part of her soul that had kept Kikyou alive for so long came in through the window and entered her body, catching her completely by surprise. As it rejoined the rest of her soul, flashes of Kikyou's last memories hit her. She saw the lake, the water, the fight, and then she saw Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha.

"There is still time," Kikyou's voice whispered to her mind.

* * *

**The End of Part I**

* * *

_**Part II: Reconciliation  
Chapter Twelve — Sacrifice**__  
She knows it's too cold and she's too human. She jumps in anyway. Which is more deadly? The cold or the monster at the bottom of the lake?_

Author's Note: 'Reconciliation' is the sequel, but it will be posted to this story for convenience. I'd like to say a special thanks to all my reviewers. The support I've had on this story was amazing, and I feel proud of myself that so many people seem to be enjoying my work. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, as well as the next part of the story.

Special thanks to flirtymiyu, 43InuAsha, sayuri-girl, musicallady1, tajia, Laina Aurelius, Amadoni, kakasakuluver, BlazingMidnightRain, darknessofmyheart, TheMikoShivae, LadySafire, shadowblade-tara, kagome past and present, ArizonaBay, supersillee06, llebreknit, Foxfire Inari, mangadreams, dedanaan, aimdiscord, Dominik Journot, and kittyb78!

About Inuyasha's wish – I wouldn't consider it selfishness as much as desperation about his situation and an understanding that Kohaku's life was over. He understands that bringing someone back to life doesn't really make everything okay.


	12. Sacrifice

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* * *

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**Reconciliation**  
_By Miss Kagura  
_Chapter Twelve — Sacrifice

* * *

Ah-Un circled the freezing lake with a grunt, as if warning Kagome that what she was thinking about doing was stupid. The water was much colder than it needed to be to make her sick, so when the dragon landed, the two heads grabbed onto her clothing with two sets of teeth and held her in place when she got closer to the water. They loudly bellowed, as if calling someone, and watched Kagome take off her outer kimono and slip out of their grasp. 

"I have to do this. They're going to die down there," Kagome said, trying to explain what she was doing to the sulking dragon.

Kagome felt a mouth gently clamp down on her wrist and pulled on it. "That's enough! I have to do this!" She lightly pushed on Ah's nose until he sneezed and let go of her arm, and then took her shoes off, ignoring how painfully cold her feet felt in the snow. Nothing else mattered except getting Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha out of the water. She believed she couldn't handle life without her beloved dogs, however violent, stupid, and stubborn they happened to be.

She walked out onto the slippery, broken ice, and tested the water. Just as she was withdrawing her toe from the water, the chunk of ice she was standing on broke and caused her to fall in.

For a few seconds, Kagome's entire body seemingly stopped working. She couldn't breathe, her limbs felt frozen in place, and even her brain didn't want to work. She summoned her willpower and kicked to the surface, gasping for air. She wasn't sure if it was the most painful thing she had ever experienced, but being submerged in water that cold was definitely one of the worst things she could imagine. Her disobedient limbs finally began to move when she told them to, but she hated every movement of her legs and arms because it sent shockwaves of pain through her body.

Kagome pushed as much of it out of her mind as she could and focused on how much worse it would hurt to wake up the next day and know Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha were gone forever. Even worse that it would be due to the fact she couldn't handle a little cold. When was angry enough at herself, Kagome dove into the frigid water and swam toward the bottom of the lake.

She was relieved when she saw something red, and kicked her aching legs to Inuyasha. She grabbed his left hand, since the right was still clutched around Tessaiga, and tried to pull him up. When Kagome was unable to swim while holding onto him, she realized he had become tangle in some sort of algae, and tried to pull it off him.

The tendril released Inuyasha and moved like a snake, wrapping around her instead; its owner found the miko to be a much warmer and much more appetizing treat. It squeezed her abdomen and chest, and Kagome choked out whatever air she had saved up in her lungs. Her nails cut at the tentacle, with no success. She held out one hand, and her Tonbogiri materialized in spear form. She easily severed the appendage and swam toward Inuyasha was falling — right into the beak of a giant squid youkai!

The glint of Bakusaiga caught her eye, and she saw Sesshoumaru being carried toward the creature's beak as well.

The question was posed: white or red? Lover or friend?

There were so many things that remained unanswered about what had happened. How had the strained peace broken into such violence? Who started it? Who attacked first? She couldn't bear to see either of them die, but she knew that losing Sesshoumaru would hurt more than she could possibly imagine. He had become a part of who she was, as had the former hanyou.

She had also spent enough time with Inuyasha to know that Sesshoumaru was probably responsible for the violence. She loved the jerk to death, but it didn't make him any less of a jerk, did it? Never once had Kagome wanted him to change; she loved him like he was just as she had loved Inuyasha as a hanyou.

Kagome continued to sink, weighed down by her weapon. She could give life to only one.

She put her selfish fears of loss aside and tried to decide which one deserved life most. Only one of them was merciful, loyal, and possessed any true semblance of kindness toward others in general. Sesshoumaru, for all of her love, was still Sesshoumaru. Merciless. Cruel. Selfish. Whether or not she was an exception to the rule didn't make her assessment any less correct. If she imagined what both of them would do in the future, it wasn't hard to see Inuyasha having a positive impact on the lives of others. With Sesshoumaru, if that happened at all, it was usually unintentional.

_I'm sorry, Sesshoumaru._

The spear in her hands started to vibrate and glow as soon as she had made her decision. It transformed into a bow on its own, and Kagome instinctively reached for the quiver that wasn't there and produced an arrow made completely of spiritual energy. The bow string glowed when it came into contact with the chi arrow, and Kagome aimed it for the mouth of the monster, which was wide open in anticipation for dinner.

The arrow sailed through the water as easily as it would have in air and discharged purification power as an explosion that blew the youkai's head to pieces.

Kagome grabbed Inuyasha's red haori and kicked to the surface as quickly as she could. When she got to what should have been oxygen, there was a giant piece of ice, and as she swam under it in search of a place that wasn't frozen, she could feel her body starting to give in. Bright flashes of light, aching lungs, and frozen limbs could barely handle her, much less the one she had chosen over Sesshoumaru.

Everything went black.

* * *

**Two Days Later…**

Jaken held a cloth to Kagome's feverish forehead and listened to the ominous gurgle in her chest.

Ah-Un's bellowing had eventually been carried by the wind to Abi, who arrived in time to get Kagome out of the water, as well as the former hanyou her frozen fingers were clutching for dear life. She also got Sesshoumaru from the bottom of the lake, although he wasn't faring so well, having been partially purified by Kikyou and then crushed by the tentacle.

When the dragon returned home, Kagome was full of cold water and suffering from terrible hypothermia, which neither of the youkai understood. Youkai flesh wasn't usually hurt by exposure, as long as it was warmed back up. In Kagome's case though, her fingers, ears, toes, and nose were all seemingly dead, as if the cold had killed the tissue. On the second day, the skin covering those parts of her body turned black and Jaken was sent to a human village to learn about the strange human condition known as 'frostbite.'

Other than that, Kagome was also suffering from pneumonia and fever. Jaken gathered herbs for her, hoping that she wouldn't be lost because she had chosen to save the feuding brothers. He lightly cleaned the places where the frostbitten skin was detaching itself from her body, knowing if any of it got infected, she might end up losing fingers and toes.

Inuyasha had been easy enough to treat, and had only required a few decent blows to the chest, which loosened up the chunks of jagged ice that had formed in his lungs. Sesshoumaru, on the other hand, was recovering from having his rib cage crushed into the delicate organs it usually protected. Neither had been awake since Abi brought them home, but Jaken suspected the cat was either sedating them to keep them from fighting or poisoning them as vengeance for making her violate her feline nature and take a swim in the cold lake.

The smell of blood hit his nose and he scanned the miko carefully. The frostbitten areas weren't bleeding, and the smell wasn't coming from her breathing, which ruled out her respiratory sickness. There was something strange about it, something…demonic.

The door flew open when the smell of blood hit the cat's nose and she threw the covers off Kagome, revealing a pool of blood forming in between her legs. Her sharper nose picked through the smells; there was Kagome's scent, Sesshoumaru's, and a male hanyou's.

Kagome was having a miscarriage.

Abi sat down on the floor next to the bed and sighed. "Idiots," she said.

She cleaned up the mess in silence and put a hand on her forehead. Kagome's fever was out of control to the point that even the youkai understood her life was in danger. "Jaken, get her cooled off again," she ordered.

Abi pulled Inuyasha's haori off, and used it to roll Tessaiga and Bakusaiga into a bundle. The fire rat cloth blocked the warding spell on the swords, which she carried through the woods to the lake they had fought in. She knocked a hole in the ice with her naginata and shook the haori. The two swords fell on the ice and the cat knelt next to them.

She saw something move, and waited as the brightly-colored piece of fabric surfaced. The yellow and orange checkered kimono smelled of Sesshoumaru and a young female scent she was unfamiliar with. Her nose sniffed the water, which was still tainted by anger, rage, and pain, despite the fact that it had already been two days since the incident. The only reason those feelings would have lingered in the lake was if something anchored them.

In extremely rare cases, high amounts of emotion spawned youkai like the Unmother. Whatever was in the lake had been created from the emotions that the brothers threw around. It was a physical manifestation of two hundred years of strife.

And, in order to get their weapons back someday, they'd have to face it.

"They're brothers," she whispered to the winter as she used the red haori to push Tessaiga into the water. The Bakusaiga followed, glimmering as it disappeared in the icy depths. She saw one of the blades glimmer as it sank to the bottom of the cold lake, as if showing off one last time before going to rest in the darkness below. Two pieces of steel became a sacrifice to any god that would listen in hopes that their fragmented, broken home might be fixable.

It was sickly ironic that the sons the Inu No Taisho gave to other women had come into her care, since Touga refused to impregnate her. It was the only thing she ever asked him for, and he denied her again and again. _"You're hands are meant for killing, not taking care of pups,"_ he would say.

A bitter smirk formed on the cat's lips as she stood up and went home to care for the pups he never gave her. She had given them a home, safety, training, and now, she was the one who would strip them of their pride and fix the shattered family Touga left behind.

The sound of hooves walking on the slippery ice jerked her out of her thoughts, and she turned see Toutousai, who was wearing the most forlorn expression she had ever seen on him. The old youkai jumped off Momo the Bull and walked to the jagged hole Abi had made in the ice. "I warned them. They knew their swords were not made for this. I told Inuyasha I would smash Tessaiga if he ever raised Tessaiga to kill his brother," he said.

Abi merely nodded and said, "It's not like they fought just because they hate each other. Right after it happened, this whole area was tainted by the hurt they both felt."

"For them to truly become brothers, they have to not only learn how to forgive, but how to let go of the hurt. The hate is there because of the pain, so telling them to stop hating each other is useless," Toutousai explained.

Dog demons never did anything in moderation. Everything had to be taken to the extreme whether it was eating, loving, fucking, fighting, or hating. They were also the undisputed most powerful species alive, often exhibiting strength that no one else could even dream about. To be born Inu Taiyoukai was to have the power and drive to force the rest of the world to capitulate to whatever will, whim, or dream that was had.

Toutousai held out a pair of metal shackles and a key saying, "I'm not ready to give up on them."

She took them and sighed, "I think they're ready to give up on them. We have more faith in them now than they do in themselves."

Abi returned to the miko's side and inspected her wounds again.

One of her fingers smelled gangrenous, which meant it had to be severed before the infection spread to the rest of her fingers and her hand. It was the fourth finger on her left hand, and when a claw pulled back flayed skin, dead, rotting flesh was revealed. Her nose crinkled; she knew the scent well. Human battlefields smelled of gangrene in the hours after battle. Their wars always seemed so senseless, and only resulted in the loss of life for power. Since humans only lived a short time and were incredibly fragile, youkai were quite puzzled at their warmongering. Abi had passed by bloody battlefields where thousands of humans lay dead, dying, and suffering. For what? Land? No, the land would still be there regardless of who won the war. All war did for the land was soak it in blood and liter it with countless, nameless corpses.

That attitude, those wars, and the scent coming from Kagome's finger reminded the cat of the senseless things people did. Ten thousand deaths for ten kilometers of rice, five thousand for the honor of the warlord's daughter, and a firstborn child for Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha's bitter hate. The scent of Kagome's miscarried hanyou still hung on the air, and the cat's stomach turned as she checked to make sure the miko was completely unconscious.

Razor sharp claws severed the damaged, black finger from Kagome's hand. She threw the window open to cool off the still-feverish miko, and then walked to the next house, where the dogs slept. A quick breath blew out the burning oil that kept them asleep, and as they slowly returned to consciousness, the only thing either of them heard was the damning _click_ of the shackles.

Inuyasha opened his eyes and sat up, and then immediately reached for Tessaiga when he realized his brother was so close to him. Sesshoumaru was equally appalled and his hand grasped for Bakusaiga. "What have you done with my Tessaiga, you bastard?" Inuyasha asked.

"I won the duel. Stealing your weapon would be pointless," Sesshoumaru hissed.

Whatever thought either of them had about their weapons was forgotten when they realized their feet had been shackled together. Sesshoumaru jerked his foot, and Inuyasha pulled on his, but the chain showed no signs of weakening. Sesshoumaru's claws tugged at the links, searching for a weak point.

Sesshoumaru craned his head to the cat, who was staring out the window, and asked, "What kind of trick is this? Where is my Bakusaiga?"

"Do you know you impregnated Kagome?" she asked.

Inuyasha felt hate bubbling deep in his gut, and he took a single swing at his brother. Since Sesshoumaru was too stunned to breathe, much less dodge Inuyasha's fist, his nose cracked on contact. "You bastard! Are you going to hate your own kid as much as you hate me?"

"She's…I…I'm going to have a pup?" Sesshoumaru asked.

The cat hesitated, realizing she was about to deal massive amounts of pain out to the two brothers. It wasn't in her nature to relish in such things, even with her enemies. Unfortunately, in order for them to rebuild themselves, they had to be broken first and broken completely.

She pushed the window open, and the smells of Kagome's illness and miscarriage wafted into the room. "You would be if she hadn't had to drag you two out of the freezing lake. I sincerely hope the fact that you won a duel with your brother is worth the loss of your first pup," One bound from the windowsill sent her flying through the trees. Whatever happened from that point on would be up to them.

Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha sat in silence next to each other while they digested the fact that by lashing out against each other, they had done irreparable damage to Kagome, the only person either of them loved. It wasn't even that there had been a purpose other than killing each other, and neither thought taking the other's life was even remotely as important as protecting Kagome.

The older brother felt the chain tug as Inuyasha practically dragged him out of the bed. "I want to go see Kagome," he said.

Sesshoumaru, who also wanted to see her, didn't reply, but walked carefully behind his brother. The chain that linked them together was remarkably short, so he was forced to walk in rhythm with Inuyasha or be dragged. None of that mattered to him though. All he could think about was the bitter chill of the winter and the thing it had taken from him.

No, it wasn't the winter, he realized. It wasn't the freezing water Kagome inhaled, or the way it bit at her body.

The door opened and nothing could have prepared either of them for what they saw. Black, flayed skin covered her lovely fingers, and her firm breasts rose and fell erratically, trying to provide enough oxygen to her feverish body to keep going. She was so weak. The men who loved her wanted to punish the one who had caused this, but the finger inevitably pointed back at them.

Inuyasha watched her, trying to remember how many times he'd promised to protect her. He had always feared that he couldn't save her from himself, but his mind pictured his youki raging out of control. Never once did he consider the hate he held so close to his heart to be dangerous to her. She was Kagome…hate didn't affect her.

The pain carved into Sesshoumaru's face was unforgettable. When he looked at Inuyasha, something in his eyes seemed both devastated and old. Inuyasha looked away, but the corner of his eye could still see the intimate way his fingers tangled with Kagome's. For the first time, Inuyasha saw how much his brother loved Kagome. He had never seen Sesshoumaru adore something so completely, or seem so filled with regret.

A clawed hand rested briefly over Kagome's stomach as Sesshoumaru considered the consequences of the choices he and his brother made. He had gambled his life, and had he died, he would have left her alone with a pup. The thought of leaving her defenseless and pregnant nearly made him nervous enough to vomit, but he calmed briefly when he realized that hadn't happened. He was alive, because she put her own life on the line for him at the expense of their firstborn. Would Kagome have done it had she known?

In all of their hate, and all of their anger, Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha had practically destroyed the most beautiful thing in their world.

Sesshoumaru whispered an apology into Kagome's hair and promised her he wouldn't let the sacrifice made be in vain.

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**Please Review!**

**Chapter Thirteen — The Long Winter  
**They have no privacy, they're allowed no peace, and the person each hates worse is never more than an arm's length away. Some things weren't meant to be left unsaid.

Special thanks to musicallady1, Lola161ut, Foxfire Inari, no life king, darknessofmyheart, Mia, Kiki.s2, TAJE, kitty, tajia, Kat57, Inuforlyf, BlazingMidnightRain, llebreknit, ArizonaBay, S.T. Nickolian, supersillee06, Dragoness Fohama, Dominik Journot, The Tragic Pixie, flirtymiyu, sayuri-girl, shadowblade-tata, mangadreams, Laina Aurelius, Solaira, Lady Safire, bloodymoonwitch, Amadoni, TheMikoShivae, and kittyb78!


	13. The Long Winter

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**Reconciliation**  
_By Miss Kagura  
_Chapter Thirteen — The Long Winter

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**Flashback**  
Sesshoumaru's father took him away from the fortress, to a quiet field. Of all the things in the Inu no Taisho's life, this was the thing he loved most. He had two beautiful women to fuck, an army to command, and a fortress, but all he wanted to do was wrestle with his baby. The excited yips and barks of the seven-year-old were music to his ears, and never failed to fill him with joy.

His shoes, swords, and armor lay in a pile; it was time for him to be a father, not a warrior.

"Did you behave while I was gone?" Touga asked.

A happy, fanged smile flashed in reply just before Sesshoumaru's teeth nipped him on the leg in unspoken challenge.

"Oh, so that's how it's going to be, huh?" Touga laughed as he gentle wrestled the boy to the ground and punished Sesshoumaru by exploiting his greatest weakness. Feather-light touches from his claws sent the boy into a fit of laughter. He was such a ticklish boy. When the pup had turned red, he stopped and waited for Sesshoumaru to catch his breath.

"Father? Are you ever afraid when you fight?" he asked.

Touga crossed his legs and pulled Sesshoumaru into his lap. "All the time," he said.

"You're afraid to die?" Sesshoumaru asked.

"No, that part of it doesn't frighten me. I'm afraid I won't get to see you grow up sometimes, but the actual idea of dying isn't scary," he explained.

The curious boy thought for a moment, and then said, "Why? Why would it be okay to die?"

"There reasons I will kill, causes I would give my own life for, and things I live for. Learning what those things are is a part of growing up," he answered. "Dying is only something to fear if it will be in vain."

"I don't understand," Sesshoumaru replied.

"Everyone dies eventually, Sesshoumaru. I will, you will, even your children will. Just don't let it be for a stupid reason. Your life is your final and greatest asset, and when your turn, die for love. Die for your family," Touga said. "Don't let anyone close to you die in vain. Give it purpose."  
**End Flashback**

Sesshoumaru banged his head against the bed he was sitting beside, and then took a few seconds to stare holes into his brother, who was snoring softly next to him. So many things had been lost because his little brother existed. That made it Inuyasha's fault, right? The guilt was enough to give him a taste of his own bile, and he was helpless to do anything but wait. Wait and think.

What he really wanted was to look deep inside of himself and find that none of it was his fault. It was the first real, honest introspection he had ever bothered with when it came to Inuyasha. Hate and pride had allowed him to view the issue in a very black-and-white light, but it was time to examine all the shades of grey in between innocence and responsibility.

There was a moment in Sesshoumaru's life that set everything else into motion, and it resurfaced for the first time in the two centuries since it happened. The details were so vivid; he had stood on the beach with his father. He had two choices that night. Sesshoumaru could have been the one to save his brother the night he was born, and his father would have lived. It would have been nothing to him, perhaps two hours of his time and the inconvenience of handling a newborn. When the moment came to choose, Sesshoumaru was paralyzed with resentment.

It was he that had made the decision that cost their father his life.

"Do you blame me for my father's death?" Sesshoumaru asked.

Abi stretched out in the windowsill she had been sitting in and glanced down at him. "You shouldn't care about what I think."

"He didn't die for me," Sesshoumaru replied.

"Choosing not to act is still a choice," Abi said. "For a few moments, you held his life in your hands and you chose to let him die. Don't let logic stop you; go right on blaming a baby for not picking up your slack."

He growled and scratched at the wooden floor with his claws, "You have no idea what he's taken from me," Sesshoumaru said.

"Don't be stupid Sesshoumaru," Abi snapped. "I would love to sit here and blame both of you, but in the end, it's entirely your fault."

"You don't know," Sesshoumaru started.

The cat crouched in front of him and scowled. "You know that if you had taken your little brother in and trained him like a good brother…"

"I'll kill you if you finish that sentence," Sesshoumaru warned.

"He missed one human scent. You don't make mistakes like that because your father taught you better. No one taught him and he made that one oversight," she continued.

The taiyoukai growled and said, "He also hit me with the Wind Scar."

"Who started that fight? Or the one that cost you your arm? Let's not forget that you allied with that Naraku and used a Shikon shard to attack human parts to your person just to try and steal the one thing your brother has ever owned," Abi said.

The cat left the two Inu alone with Kagome, who was still wheezing and feverish.

Sesshoumaru picked up one of her hands and winced at the sight of the missing digit. It would impair her ability to fight indefinitely, unless her regenerative powers were able to fix it. He stood up and carefully tugged Inuyasha closer to Kagome, hoping the hanyou would remain asleep for awhile.

He sat on the bed and combed his claws through Kagome's hair, and then smoothed the pads of his fingers over her hot, red cheeks. While Kagome had healed him, he had only been the cause of suffering for her. He ran off and left her after their first coupling, and then survived a fatal poisoning only because Kagome took the poison out of him. Once again, Sesshoumaru was fine and Kagome was hurt, but this time it was irreversible damage and he was to blame.

He placed one of his clawed hands flat on her belly, knowing the something indescribably precious had grown inside of Kagome. If nothing had happened, he knew she would have missed her monthly blood and they would be nervously toiling with the concept of parenting. The smell of their hanyou might even be on her scent, and he would be totally amazed that the love they made had created new life.

Months would pass, and Kagome would have grown through the spring and given birth during the summer. He would have caught the newborn and held him when he took his first breaths, and then watched as he grew and took first steps and spoke first words. The child would have been born the same as Inuyasha was. Half-Inu and half human, the world would have hated him as he hated his brother.

And the world came full-circle to laugh at him. No, to make him suffer, and suffer he had.

"I can't do this anymore," Inuyasha said from the floor below him. "I don't have it in me to keep this up. I don't even remember how it all started. This…you and me…it's my greatest weakness."

"It is mine as well," Sesshoumaru said in agreement.

With only a few sentences, they took a major step. The shove it had taken to push them had been great, but so was the relief each felt now that it had been spoken. Hate made them weak. It made them vulnerable. It stole precious things and broke hearts. No, it did them no good.

"How do you propose we proceed?" Sesshoumaru asked.

Inuyasha shrugged and looked around the room, as if the answer was written somewhere on the walls. When no solution came to him, he sighed and said, "I have no fucking clue."

Sesshoumaru sat back down next to Inuyasha and thought for awhile. For so long, deciding to change had seemed like it would be the biggest hurdle, but it never occurred to him that the actual change could be so difficult. It was like a puzzle he wasn't allowed to solve because he had let his emotions drag him around by the nose for too long when it came to his brother.

The younger brother smiled bitterly and banged his head against the bed against the bed. "Do you have any idea how hard I wished you'd done this when I was a kid?" he asked.

"No, I…I don't," Sesshoumaru said.

Inuyasha looked right into Sesshoumaru's eyes and a flood of painful memories came back on him. "I dreamed you rescued me from these youkai once," he said with a bitter laugh. "I woke up and I was still in a cage and you still hated me."

The urge to tell his brother to be quiet or to leave completely was overwhelming, but for Kagome's sake as well as his own, Sesshoumaru took a deep breath and actually allowed himself to think about what Inuyasha had revealed to him. He wasn't ignorant to the fact that the hate was generally one way when Inuyasha was a pup. There were times the hanyou had broken down and begged his older brother for mercy.

Sesshoumaru tried to divert focus from his shortcomings as a big brother and asked, "Why were you in a cage?"

"So I couldn't hit back," Inuyasha replied.

There was a long and undeniably awkward silence as they digested the conversation so far. Sesshoumaru felt compelled to reciprocate somehow, but he wasn't sure what to say. Was he supposed to apologize or tell Inuyasha how he had hurt his older brother? In the end, pain couldn't be fixed with words. At least, the level of pain that fueled their tumultuous relationship couldn't. Nothing he could say would make Inuyasha feel better. What was the point?

Inuyasha, who was mulling over the same issue, sighed and said, "Is this going to fix anything?"

"I am unsure if there is anything between us that is fixable," Sesshoumaru replied. "It would be ridiculous to continue caring about something that could be repaired."

"I guess," Inuyasha agreed.

While Sesshoumaru tried to recall anything he had been taught about relationships, his mind continually strayed to his father. The loss of his best friend, teacher, and father still hurt every time he thought about him. That loss had been so significant that it started the fire that had burned out of control and claimed so many of the things he valued.

The Inu No Taisho taught him many things about war, and the more he thought about it, he realized his relationship with Inuyasha was like a war. There were causes, battles, campaigns, and lines drawn that were crossed time and time again. Both sides had lost so much, and endured quite a lot of pain.

When Sesshoumaru was young, he had wondered how the panther youkai had managed to live under a peace treaty after the gruesome costs of their war with the Inu, but it was beginning to make sense. Peace was about realizing war was no longer worth the pain and loss, and making a commitment that would be kept only because both sides dreaded the sacrifices war demanded. Sometimes, that peace was permanent, and many former enemies became friends. Other times, the peace only lasted until one side forgot how miserable war was.

Sesshoumaru knew _that_ would never happen. He and Inuyasha would carry their scars to the grave, and for once the concept almost comforted him. Every single day that they were forced to remember how much it hurt to wound each other and be wounded in return was another day they could easily choose peace.

"Reconciliation," Sesshoumaru said.

"Eh?" Inuyasha asked.

"It is a tradition between taiyoukai to form blood reconciliations instead of paper treaties," Sesshoumaru explained. He used his right hand to cut across the palm of his left hand — one of the many things he had surrendered to the blistering hatred that threatened to consume him alive — and gestured to his brother, who mimicked him with more than a little hesitancy. They held their palms upright and pressed them together, and then watched the mixed blood that dripped onto the floor between them.

It was an intimate act reserved for the closest of allies and the worst of enemies, to begin new alliances and end bloody wars. Never once had Sesshoumaru allowed his blood to mix with another taiyoukai's in this manner. No one else was worthy of such an exchange. Not the panthers, not the great dragons with their terrible powers, and certainly not any of the countless fiends he had hunted down and slain. No one else was worth the burden of trying to get along with.

No one else was his brother.

They both leapt to their feet when Kagome awoke. "Mmmmmphh…" she moaned as her blue eyes slowly opened.

Instantly, Sesshoumaru was at her side, holding her hand as he checked her forehead. "Are you feeling better?" he asked.

Kagome searched his eyes for disappointment, or even anger about her decision to save Inuyasha over him. She looked past him to Inuyasha, but the victorious glint wasn't anywhere in them. She squeezed Sesshoumaru's hand, trying to figure out what had happened. All she could remember after she passed out in the lake was drifting in and out of consciousness. Had she been saved by someone else? That had to have been the case, although the only person who would have been capable of doing that was noticeably absent.

Sesshoumaru didn't know.

Pain flickered in his eyes when she didn't reply, and she immediately rethought her conclusion. It was resonating through her soul, even though he was clearly holding it back for her sake. "I'm sorry," Kagome whimpered. "I didn't know what to do! I had to make a choice, and…and…"

"Shh…" Sesshoumaru said, cutting her off before she broke down into sobs.

Since Sesshoumaru didn't know about Kagome's choice at the bottom of the lake, he wrongly assumed her apology was proof she was aware she had lost their pup during the feverish delirium that kept her from becoming completely conscious for the prior days. "You should not apologize, Kagome. We didn't know about the pup," he comfortingly said.

Kagome was completely confused and said, "What pup?"

"Oh shit," Inuyasha muttered.

She sat up and felt the world spin as she processed Sesshoumaru's words. She remembered curling up in a ball, hearing Jaken say something about her body smelling like blood, and the cramps. "I was pregnant?" she loudly rasped through her scratchy, swollen throat.

Kagome's sobs came hard and fast, taxing her already weak body as she cried out apologies to Sesshoumaru over and over in an almost senseless stupor. Her guilt was almost tangible as she cried, knowing she had lost her lovechild while choosing against her love.

Inuyasha grabbed her other hand, which she had draped over her stomach as the horror and guilt set in. "Don't apologize, Kagome. You saved us. You didn't know," he said.

"You don't get it!" Kagome cried. "I saved _you_. I had to choose, I could only save one…I don't know why Sesshoumaru is even alive."

Sesshoumaru withdrew his hand from hers and raised it to his chest, which felt strangely tight and painful. "I see," Sesshoumaru said. "My brother's clay bitch has crossed into the afterlife. You wish to return to him."

Kagome wanted to explain, but he had turned away from her. She rolled over and quietly cried into the pillow, wondering how everything had turned out so badly. He made her so happy, but this, this was more than he could take, and even she knew that.

Inuyasha nearly fell down when the chain around his ankle was quickly yanked in the direction of the door. He gave Kagome an apologetic expression and followed quietly as his brother stormed out of the house. At that moment, there was no person in all of the earth that he would want to be chained to less than his brother, especially considering that Kagome had seemingly signed his life over to the water.

Something inside of Inuyasha ached from regret; the human in him loved Kagome. The hanyou he had been loved her. He was taiyoukai though, and his affection for human women had seemingly vanished from his heart. When he thought of her, she was the woman he loved once. The youkai in him was drawn toward other youkai, and ironically enough, he wasn't sure how his brother loved a human. It seemed quite odd to picture himself with one now.

If Kagome had truly changed her mind and decided she wanted to be with him, he knew he could never love her back. Had Inuyasha known that this moment might come, he wouldn't have made the wish at all. It was too late to undo what he had done. He could never be with Kagome.

Sesshoumaru dragged Inuyasha across a wooden bridge into one of the other houses, where Abi was sitting on the floor, sharpening her claws with a stone. When their eyes met, Inuyasha saw the unshakeable cat youkai tremble and wilt under Sesshoumaru's hateful stare. She stood and retracted her claws, waiting for him to speak.

"You bitch!" Sesshoumaru growled angrily.

The cat had driven a guilty knife into his heart, disarmed him, and then chained him to his brother. "You're only angry because you don't understand. It's always the same with you dogs. You, your father, your little brother…if you had asked why, you wouldn't be here."

"Kagome desires my brother," Sesshoumaru said.

During the first couple of days, Kagome had talked nearly non-stop in her sleep about what ran through her mind in those moments, so both Abi and Jaken were well aware of the decision she had made. "Kagome thinks the world is better off with Inuyasha than you because you're a bastard sometimes and she knows it. Her decision had nothing to do with love," Abi explained.

"She has no faith in me," Sesshoumaru said.

"She loves you, but she also knows you. She chose against you because you act like a monster whenever you damn well feel like it," Abi said.

Sesshoumaru's eyes narrowed, and he lamented over the fact that he couldn't have five minutes alone just to think. He hadn't changed for Kagome, which was something he loved about her. There was no requirement that he be anything or do anything. Their love had been the accidental result of chemistry that worked a little too perfectly to ignore. Lust, endearment, courage, loyalty…no, she had never required him to be a 'good' person. Kagome didn't hesitate to hold it against him though.

This proved two things about his miko.

Firstly, it proved beyond any doubt that Kagome adored him and not the things he did. They were two people in love, and Kagome could overlook things even he easily identified as rude or terrible in nature. If he killed a village of people and gave her even a remotely legitimate reason, she'd still love him. She might leave, but it wouldn't change her feelings.

Secondly, it established the level of strength and reason Kagome commanded even in the most dire situations. She didn't do choose the one she loved more, since she obviously loved him enough to overlook the numerous times he had attempted to end her life. Neither had she made a choice by trying to determine who was more or less at fault, or by trying to figure out who deserved to live the most. Faced with choosing death for someone she cared about, Kagome made an intelligent decision that was completely in line with her purpose in life. She was, after all, a miko.

If Sesshoumaru hadn't been the one left to die, he would have been quite proud of Kagome for not allowing her emotions to control her. As it stood though, he at least felt significantly less betrayed and less homicidal.

Sesshoumaru let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding and let go of the anger. He knew he couldn't penalize her, even in his own mind, for becoming strong, and for having enough of a brain to realize his existence was probably counterproductive to human safety.

He turned back to Kagome and yanked his brother in her direction again. Just before they reentered the house where she slept, Sesshoumaru glanced at Inuyasha knowing there had been moments when Inuyasha could have torn his heart out. His brother had remained so quiet, as if silently encouraging him to work through the immense emotional backlash. It wasn't much, but it was something. It was a choice to do things differently, and that was enough for both of them.

"I know how we can get these binds off," Sesshoumaru said.

Inuyasha perked up. "How?" he asked.

"Have you noticed how Abi stares at you?" Sesshoumaru asked.

"She stares at everyone. That's kind of her thing," Inuyasha replied.

Sesshoumaru arched his brows and said, "The only person she looked at like she looks at you was Father."

"What's that supposed to mean? Why do I care if his whore looks at me like—" he started. His mouth suddenly stopped moving, and then closed. Inuyasha pursed his lips and looked away.

"Exactly," Sesshoumaru replied.

* * *

**Please Review!**

_**Chapter Fourteen: Catnip**_  
_While Sesshoumaru and Kagome struggle with grief and her sickness, Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha are required to fight while chained together to save their feline friend, who nearly becomes the source of the adage 'Curiosity killed the cat.'_

Special thanks to Jasminebaby, Ashley, kitty, no life king, Eroticanime, Foxfire Inari, REDWOLF, Laina Aurelius, metalcherry, kagome past and present, miori576, Dragoness Fohama, llebreknit, aimdiscord, flirtymiyu, juusan'ya, LadySafire, TheMikoShivae, darknessofmyheart, Amadoni, Dominik Journot, Mia, shadowblade-tara, Western Lord's Yukibara, VampireGoddess12Xx, 43InuAsha, musicallady1, angelbabe2000, Yuki-hime, ArizonaBay, hells singer, tapole910, tajia, The Tragic Pixie, silencio1111, kimoukai, kat57, kittyb78, supersillee06, and Kibi.s2!


	14. Catnip!

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**Reconciliation**  
_By Miss Kagura  
_Chapter Fourteen — Catnip

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The oil from the cooked liver of a Ningyo youkai fish was poured into a tiny glass vial, which Abi eyed with contentment. She crinkled her nose at Jaken and shivered even though she was next to a fire. Jaken couldn't take the cold, so it was she who had been forced to extract their prey from the rushing white river. "I've been wet for all the wrong reasons lately," she muttered quietly. 

Jaken said nothing. He knew better, and had some fears that any response to the increasingly lascivious things she said to herself would end in a very uncomfortable conversation. Even Jaken was well aware of the devious way she watched the younger brother, as if stalking her prey. The fact that Inuyasha was completely oblivious to all of this only seemed to incite the cat's strange affections more.

A week had passed since Kagome awoke and fresh wounds were slowly beginning to heal for the miko and her two favorite dogs. The tangled mess of fate was being sorted through, if only one strand at a time. Every day was another day they chose peace over war and determination over frustration. It was hard, harder than any of them would have imagined.

"A lovely night for an assassination, don't you think?" she asked.

They had been collecting oil from the Ningyo in order to open a gateway that would give them access to the forest's guardian, a celestial maiden named Sakura. For reasons unknown to Jaken (and possibly nonexistent), Abi had decided that she wished to kill the woman.

Shortly after they returned home, Abi disappeared and Jaken returned to Sesshoumaru's side.

Sesshoumaru's lip twitched in irritation when Jaken plopped down on the floor next to him. It wasn't that he had a problem with Jaken specifically, but being indoors and half a meter from Inuyasha for the past week had proven itself a new and exhausting form of annoying. He growled and checked to see if his lover was awake, and then smashed his head against the edge of the bed, which now bore cracks from repeated blows.

"You have done nothing to emancipate us," he complained to Inuyasha.

His brother blushed and broke eye contact. "Keh! Shut up! I'm not in love with that bitch."

"You're a full-blooded youkai now. It's actually perfectly acceptable to rut for the simple purpose of doing so," Sesshoumaru replied.

Inuyasha, whose skin was now roughly the same shade as his fire rate robes, crossed his arms, wanting very badly to simply escape from this conversation. "I'm not talking about this with you!"

The elder banged his head again, wondering why there was an issue with his brother. All Inuyasha had to do was sleep with her; what kind of unmated, unattached male turns his back on sex with a female? The answer to that came surprisingly easy. "Virgin," Sesshoumaru said out loud. He himself had been responsible for Kagome's lost virginity, and Sesshoumaru was very, very sure the clay woman would never had copulated with his brother unless Inuyasha became a human.

"Would you shut up already?" Inuyasha shouted, hoping Sesshoumaru would just drop the subject altogether.

Sesshoumaru smirked at him and said, "Really, Inuyasha, do you expect that to work?"

Inuyasha sighed. "Not really. I'm still not going to fuck her. Maybe if I just let her think that I will, she'll unbind us. And then I won't."

"She would violate your person," Sesshoumaru replied.

"Wonderful," Inuyasha mumbled.

When Kagome stirred a few hours later, she was well enough to sit up and drink some of the broth Jaken had made. Only Jaken's would do, as she had a strict rule about eating anything Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha made for her. Wonderful cooks they were not.

A few strained glances into Sesshoumaru's eyes as he spoon-fed her were enough to make her realize he was suffering greatly.

Sesshoumaru stared at her in confusion when she threw her head back and broke out into maniacal laughter. The spoon never faltered as he tried to decipher her peculiar outburst. "Is something wrong? Or extremely humorous?"

"No…there is nothing about this that is funny at all," Kagome said.

The smell of saline only briefly warned him of the tears that immediately followed, streaming down her face as the laughter stopped and she laid her had back. "It's either that or bawling my eyes out, and I can't figure out which one is going to make me hurt less," she cried. "I mean, on the bright side, I guess all of this is proof we aren't ready to be parents. I mean, not that I thought we were, I just…."

Two sets of amber eyes met as she babbled. Each had known it would likely come down to Kagome blaming herself for something that clearly wasn't her fault. She was trying to justify what had happened, trying to make it seem like life was being fair to her. What she needed was some form of affirmation, something to dull the sharp sting in her heart.

Her desperate prattling continued with, "…I mean, I'm just a kid, and I don't really know what I'm doing. I would be a horrible moth—"

Kagome's lips were captured by Sesshoumaru's thinner, warmer ones. He could still taste the broth and disappointment in her mouth as his head tilted and briefly touched his tongue to hers. The firm kiss softened and then he gave her one final, giving her a quick, strong peck of encouragement. "I love you," he whispered against her lips.

"I…" Kagome whispered, totally stunned by the confession.

"I'm still here!" Inuyasha shouted.

"Well aware, Baby Brother," Sesshoumaru muttered. "Thank you for the interruption, it was appreciated. Unfortunately, this binding arrangement doesn't allow any privacy whatsoever, and you are unwilling to fix it."

"I'm not having sex with that bitch!" he screeched.

Kagome relaxed on the bed and stared up at the ceiling as she listened to the pointlessly argumentative sibling banter. She had no idea what they were talking about, but the entire concept of them being chained together was both funny and unnerving all at once. She wondered if there was anyone on the entire planet in any time period that would enjoy being trapped in a small house with them at that moment.

When the topic of his virginity was raised again, Inuyasha found embarrassment and shame yet again. "My women were both priestesses! Pure! Not wanting that!"

Sesshoumaru glanced down at Kagome's narrow and threatening eyes and chose not to answer his brother on whether or not Kagome wanted sex. He felt her fingers touch his hand, and took the small, unquestionably disfigured hand into his own, stroking the skin with his thumb. It was a gentle, intimate gesture that was completely missed by the former hanyou, who was too busy defending his own sexual purity to notice.

Her eyes softened, melting Sesshoumaru's as she calmed down.

They still loved each other, and for all the pain and suffering, there was an unspoken promise to try and make things better. It was easy to simply be two people in a relationship, and harder to suffer for one another. Suffering because of someone she loved, Kagome realized, and staying, was really the measure of her faith and commitment to Sesshoumaru. He had wounded her, and Kagome knew that he would inevitably do so again.

Love wasn't half as easy as she had expected it to be. It was supposed to be some divine life enhancement that brought sex and companionship and…she couldn't remember what else, but it hadn't lived up to her expectations at all. The first flicker of lust and the infatuation that accompanied it melted into desire, which they burned for everything they were worth the night they first had sex.

Falling in love was easy.

Staying in love and together wasn't.

In retrospect, Kagome realized she should have known this. How many stories had she heard of lovers who couldn't stay the course? So many ended in tragedy, heartbreak, and for the first time, she understood why some of those things had to end like they did. Emotionally weak people, like Kikyou and Inuyasha had been during their time, didn't have the strength to hold on under stress or to blindly trust someone else.

No, love wasn't what she expected it to be. It made her heart ache and her body wild with desire; it anchored her to reality and gave her the nerve to heal, to become strong, and to forgive her beloved dog.

"Hey, Kagome! What was that shit you used to give Buyo that made him act crazy?" Inuyasha asked.

Kagome shook her head, completely confused by Inuyasha's question. "Catnip?" she asked.

"Yeah, I smell that, and I'm pretty sure I've never smelled it on this side of the well before. Kind of suspicious that it would turn up so close to a cat," Inuyasha said.

Sesshoumaru arched his brows. "Any effect on dogs?" he asked.

"Nah," Inuyasha said.

"It's settled then. We get to meet whatever crafty individual has chosen to toy with the cat," Sesshoumaru said.

He kissed Kagome's forehead and soon stood next to his brother, staring into the fog with dismay. How were they going to navigate while chained together? "This is going to prove difficult," Sesshoumaru said.

Kagome, who slipped on a robe and leaned against the doorway, grinned and said, "Want me to make it easy?"

"Please," Sesshoumaru curiously said.

Inuyasha was suddenly paralyzed in fear. She only used _that_ tone of voice before she said one word!

"Osuwari," she cooed at them.

The Beads of Subjugation lit up and then sent Inuyasha plummeting toward the ground with Sesshoumaru right behind him. He made an imprint the earth was becoming increasingly well-acquainted with. Sesshoumaru landed face-first on his chest, which made for a few seconds of very awkward sibling relations.

Sesshoumaru leapt to his feet, jerking Inuyasha across the floor of the forest. "Kagome didn't just do that," he said as he stared up at the fog.

"She did," Inuyasha replied. "Trust me, Sesshoumaru. I've known her for years and I know what she's capable of. When she starts talking like that, something bad always happens to me."

Since Inuyasha's nose was trained to the scent of catnip, he led his brother through the forest, speeding up to a sprint when they became accustomed to synchronizing their stride. It looked ridiculous, but thankfully, the other creatures in the forest knew better than to insult the two. They were, after all, two taiyoukai with famed tempers.

They came to a rock cliff, which turned out not to be solid at all. A hole in the side, which reeked strangely of fish, revealed it was simply a barrier. Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru entered the side of the crag, and entered into a green, warm meadow nearly completely covered in a sheet of cherry blossoms. A few steps later, they came across the corpse of a beautiful woman. Strawberry locks were caked with blood, and her bottom half lay discarded in the grass a meter or so away.

"There," Inuyasha said as he pointed to two stone men, who stood over a patch of catnip. In the center of it, Abi was rolling about and purring, completely senseless.

The stone men turned to face Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru, and one of them said, "Her coming was expected."

"Clearly," Sesshoumaru said.

"Have you come to bargain for her life?" The other asked.

"Nope," Inuyasha replied. "We're gonna kill you guys, and then drag her back."

"We are not of this world and cannot be harmed with weapons of this realm," the first said.

Inuyasha cocked his head to one side, "We've heard that one before."

Sesshoumaru frowned and threw an elbow. "Last time we had Tenseiga," he growled in Inu.

Inuyasha jumped when he not only heard, but understood his brother's rumble. He had heard Sesshoumaru growl and bark at him many times before, but he never really thought it meant anything. Even he had been known to do it when he was still a hanyou. It was as if all that time he could speak, but not understand. He opened his mouth and barked back. "How did Abi kill that bitch without a special weapon?"

"Cease your bestial chatter," one of the guards said, swinging a bladed spear in the air as a threat.

"That's it! His spear smells like blood! They can be harmed by their own weapons." Inuyasha growled.

They nodded in silent agreement. Sesshoumaru lunged forward, but fell flat on his face when the distance between he and Inuyasha was more than the chain could allow. "Tch! Inuyasha!"

Inuyasha grabbed the handle of the other guard's spear, which was heading for Sesshoumaru. "I bet you thought we were going to rob that guy again!" he shouted as he jerked it out of the stone man's grasp and then used it to stab him in the chest. The first guard snagged the chain between Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru and pulled on it, sending Inuyasha to the ground.

Sesshoumaru rolled across his brother and took the spear. "Stay down!" he hissed, realizing that a five foot spear wouldn't be very easy to use with his cumbersome, slow sibling next to him. He blocked a quick stab the guard tried to take, and then leapt back, only to just prevent himself from falling again. He flopped down ungracefully when Inuyasha reached for the catnip patch. He was on his back, pressing the spear in his hands in between the pronged blades of his foe.

_Click!_

He held perfectly still, barely glancing across the grass at Inuyasha, who waved the key at him. It still dangled from the chain Abi wore, which Inuyasha had taken from her while she was defenseless to make a fuss over it.

_Click!_

The poor guard never really knew what happened. Inuyasha kicked him hard, and he fell to the ground in a few pieces as Sesshoumaru expertly cut into his stone flesh with the spear. He crumbled on the ground and Sesshoumaru let out a sigh of relief. "That was interesting, to say the least," he said.

"Keh," was his only reply as Inuyasha grabbed Abi by the feet and slung her over his shoulder.

The shackles were left on the other side of the barrier, which closed as they left it.

* * *

"I'm still waiting for an explanation," Sesshoumaru said. 

Abi placed a small metal leaf on the table and said, "Sakura no Ha."

Kagome took it in her hand and stared at it in wonder. "There's this legend in my time about a celestial maiden who protected Japan with the Sakura no Ha, a giant flying cherry leaf," she said.

"Not a legend," Sesshoumaru said.

"Sakura, the maiden in question, let the dragons roost in the forest during the last Ryu War. Her life was forfeit to the Inu long, long ago," Abi explained.

Kagome coughed and tied her robe tighter, and then took the metal leaf outside. She threw it and it transformed into a giant curved leaf over two meters long. The bottom curve, which she crawled into, was padded and soft, like a bed. It swayed to and fro like a canoe, and she clutched onto the sides for dear life.

"KYAA!" she screamed when her leaf nearly capsized. Inuyasha was sitting behind her with his arms crossed. "Inuyasha, what are you doing?"

"Remember all those rides I gave you? Time to pony up, Ka-go-me," he said.

She furrowed her brows and leaned all of her weight to one side, and the leaf suddenly flipped in the air, dumping Inuyasha out. "It's drawing on my power. I can feel it," she said.

Sesshoumaru watched her slowly manipulate from one side to another, and then forward. He gave Abi a thankful glare, if such a thing existed. Combat mobility was one of Kagome's biggest weaknesses, and he felt a little reluctant to let her use Ah-Un or a similar youkai mount. She could easily purify them the dragon, even accidentally.

Kagome started to cough and wheeze again, her lungs not yet ready to brave the bitter cold. Her taiyoukai lifted her out of the leaf, and then caught it when it reverted to being tiny yet again. He tucked it into her hair and carried her to bed.

"Your finger is growing back," he commented as he tucked her into their bed.

"I see that," Kagome said.

He brushes his hand along her cheek, as if trying to soothe her soul, and gently kissed her lips. "Are you going to be all right?"

Kagome nodded. "I love you too, but I think you know that. And you love me. Neither of us are cowards and we're both too stubborn to give up, so I guess that means you're stuck with me. Forever."

"How lucky I am," he sarcastically replied.

He crawled into the bed and ran his hand along her side. "Will you forgive me someday?" he asked.

"You always have my forgiveness, as long as you're willing to stay and weather the storm with me," she whispered when he put the lamp out.

Sesshoumaru curled around her, taking in her scent, her body, and the way they fit together so well. For someone so young, Kagome had a shockingly perceptive and brave approach to living. It set her apart from humans and youkai alike, putting her into a class alone. So many things had happened, and she was still Kagome. Sweet, kind, very hot and a little mischievous, she wasn't afraid of anything, even the emotional pain the bit at her.

Somewhere else, his brother stared up at the moon. He turned to the cat who climbed onto the branch beside him without making a sound. "What do you want?" he asked.

"Don't play dumb, Puppy," Abi replied.

"What you want is my father. Sorry, he's dead," Inuyasha said.

Abi's tail twitched in irritation. "I hated your father, you know. He wrecked me intentionally and permanently and I tried to kill him so many times I lost track," she explained. "He tossed me aside like a piece of trash when your mother came along."

"Why me then?" Inuyasha asked, scooting farther away from her.

"I've never seen anyone else fall in love as hard as you do. I've done everything else in life that is worth doing except the thing I wanted most of all," Abi said.

Inuyasha turned to face her, and got a rare glimpse of the fragile creature that his father became so infatuated with. "Love," he provided. If there was one thing he understood, it was the empty, aching thirst for love. Not tolerance or friendship or lust or anything else. It would be impossible to explain that feeling to anyone who hadn't ever really needed it. The darkest nights knew the loneliness of being completely capable of loving, but being unloved.

He remembered his last conversation with Kaede, as he sized up the cat watching him tentatively. Was she lovable? Would she really love him? "What happens if it doesn't work?" he asked.

"Then it doesn't work. I think it's okay if it doesn't," she said hesitantly. "I won't seal you to a tree or fuck your brother, if that's any consolation."

"Okay, how do we start this?" he asked nervously.

The rustle of silk beside him caused Inuyasha to dig his claws into the branch he was sitting on. What he caught out of the corner of his eye caused him to fall out of the tree completely, and land in the snow below. He managed to get into a sitting position before a very naked cat crawled into his lap.

"Shouldn't we talk and go for walks and…too fast!" he complained.

"You'll say far more honest and important things in about an hour, trust me," she whispered.

By the time dawn came, all four had come to the realization that after the disaster, the angst, and the fighting, everything was going to be okay, and that was all that mattered.

* * *

**Please Review!**

_**Chapter Fifteen — Defrost  
**Kagome resumes her training, and by the time spring should be half over, the forest is frozen and dead. Even stranger, the cold seems to be coming from the bottom of the lake. Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha have to face the youkai created by their fiercest and most desperate rage!_

Special thanks to TAJE, sayuri-girl, darknessofmyheart, kagome past and present, 43InuAsha, ArizonaBay, Mia, Tsurara-hime, meliss, no life king, BlazingMidnightRain, Kat57, sorata-chan, llebreknit, Kibi.s2, VampireGoddess12Xx, supersillee06, kittyb78, Niaka1, musicallady1, flirtymiyu, aloha777, TheMikoShivae, juusan'ya, mangadreams, and LadySafire.


	15. Defrost

**

* * *

**

**Reconciliation**  
_By Miss Kagura  
_Chapter Fifteen — Defrost

* * *

Kagome pushed her metal spear, the Tonbogiri, into Abi's naginata. Her lip curled into a determined snarl, and her left hip pivoted forward, until the resistance gave way and the cat took a step back. Abi twisted and tried to knock Kagome's feet out from under her, but Kagome jumped over her the floor-sweeping kick and tilted the blade until it just barely pricked the skin on the back of Abi's neck. 

Four months she had done this for sixteen hours a day, which, if she was correct, translated to roughly two thousand hours of training with her weapon. It never failed to amaze her that when stripped of the stress of things like school and the long-deceased Naraku, that she could make real progress in learning. She had long ago become comfortable with the Tonbogiri in its most lethal form. She could throw it, spin it in melee, and use it to stab and harpoon other creatures.

She didn't have a lot of experience with using her spiritual powers alongside it because there were fears raised about her purifying her trainer, who, despite having a grasp on weapons mastery, was not a taiyoukai and therefore not capable of dealing with priestess powers. According to Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha, some things just had to be learned in combat.

"Keh, beat her up, Kagome. She has it coming," Inuyasha barked.

Abi hissed, "You really are an insufferable dog sometimes. You know that?"

"Did you say something?" he yelled back.

Kagome and Sesshoumaru exchanged a confused grin. As expected, everything had worked itself out since everyone had managed to cough up the courage and hold on for whatever they were worth. She now bore a mating mark from Sesshoumaru, strong friendships with all, and enough skill to stand on her own against most youkai. Someone like Sesshoumaru would beat her, but she was beginning to suspect she could probably defeat Abi and most other regular youkai.

It was a good life, but not one without stress. There were several big things coming up over the next year or so. Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha were going to make a move to take over the collapsing Inu empire, which was grossly mishandled and poorly led under their cousin, Hoshi. Meanwhile, she was supposed to continue her training by actually starting to fight on her own. It would be under supervision, but she was still nervous and excited to make the transition from student to fighter.

Well, it would be good if Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha knew where their swords were. Even Inuyasha, who had been sleeping with the cat for months, had no clue as to where his Tessaiga was. All that he knew was that their missing swords were somehow related to the fact the forest was still dead and frozen in the middle of spring.

Sesshoumaru cracked a branch off the tree he was sitting in and hurled it at Abi. "Where are my swords?"

"Do you really think throwing a stick at me is going to make me tell you?" she asked.

"That depends on the size of the stick," he replied.

He won a fanged smile from the cat, who said. "I swam to the bottom of a lake of freezing water because you and your brother are morons."

"Keh, what do you want? If we go swimming in the damn lake, will you give us our damn swords?" Inuyasha asked.

"If you're in the lake, you might as well get them yourselves." Abi complained.

The two taiyoukai glared at her angrily. Sesshoumaru had envisioned something more shrewd and clever from Abi, not 'I threw your swords in a lake.'

The taiyoukai wordlessly departed, following the same route they had taken on the day they nearly killed each other. Everything was still white and cold, as if time had frozen and was forcing them to live in that day. Facing what they were and everything that had happened and still choosing reconciliation was the hardest thing either of them had done.

For Inuyasha, peace meant co-existing in the same home as the brother who denied him a home, a family, and even the slightest amount of a childhood. He thought about the few memories he had of Rin quite often, running and laughing and being a child. It was something he never got to have because of Sesshoumaru. It was an accident, and even if he tried, he didn't feel guilty for killing her. He knew he would rather die than hurt a kid. When he thought back to her death, he felt ashamed of his weakness and his mistake, because it that mistake that put out that tiny glimmer of light in Sesshoumaru's eyes.

The more Inuyasha thought about it, the more he realized how much Sesshoumaru changed over a fairly short period of time. He was still an asshole, but he had become braver in a way. Brave enough to let himself care about other people, and courageous enough to risk his life for them. It was ironic that they had both pushed people away because those feelings made them feel weak.

Bare feet slid across ice; he didn't give a damn what Sesshoumaru said. He wasn't going to wear shoes. EVER. He shot Sesshoumaru a defiant glare.

As if he understood his little brother's mental rebellion, Sesshoumaru grunted in disapproval. "Ridiculous, as expected," he said.

Inuyasha didn't doubt that Sesshoumaru loved Kagome. No person in their right mind could make that claim. She didn't fix everything for him either. Sometimes, for no reason at all, he'd see a stab of pain in Sesshoumaru's eyes where there was once light. Rin's light. He couldn't pretend to understand, even for a moment, what it must have been like to know and love a child and then lose them. One thing he did understand, however, was the pain of losing a loved one to death.

Poison from Sesshoumaru's claws melted a large hole in the ice, and he left his boots and armor on the slick surface of the lake.

Inuyasha jumped in, splashing Sesshoumaru, and then swam to the surface. "Shit, this is cold!"

"This is a surprise to you for what reason?" his brother asked.

Sesshoumaru joined him and for a second, they stayed afloat at the surface, teeth chattering. "I can't believe Kagome did this. It's obviously too cold for a human."

"Like that would have stopped her," Inuyasha replied. "Let's do this!"

Sesshoumaru swam after Inuyasha, thinking about the gutsy miko as he descended into the dark depths of the lake. His father made less and less sense as more time went by, and the issue of women was one of the many issues that he found differing greatly from him. What he and Inuyasha shared with him was an appreciation for strong women like his mother, Kagome, Kagura, Kikyou, Abi and Rin. They were all women who had suffered and sacrificed for unselfish reasons, for the things and men they loved. He and Inuyasha had both found something worth loving in that dedication and willingness to sacrifice, whether it came down to the bruises on Rin's face or Kagome's nearly fatal rescue.

Why Izayoi?

He wasn't sure he would ever have the answer to that question. Some human women were tenacious and passionate, but not her. Izayoi was a shadow compared to Kagome; quiet, polite, and perfectly-mannered, he wasn't sure he ever saw her show off whatever personality she actually possessed.

The question always haunted him. Izayoi had seemed like a poor choice when he first met her, worse when she ultimately caused his father to commit suicide, and nothing had changed even when he himself made his bed with a human.

Sesshoumaru had a sneaking suspicion that Abi probably knew the answer to that question, and that he really didn't want to know the answer. He didn't like being disappointed in his father. Someday, he would ask.

Something moved in the water, and Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru were thrown violently to the surface of the lake and through the ice. Cyclones of water emerged from the water and threw the lethal mix of ice shards and snow and rock from the bottom of the lake in all directions.

Inuyasha pulled a shard of ice out of his bottom lip and licked up the blood. "Shit, what was that?"

Sesshoumaru sniffed at the air. Whatever had attacked them smelled of pure rage, unbelievable pain, hatred, and both of their scents? Over the course of his life, he had run into youkai that were born from nothing but emotion, although he had never been even remotely close to the actual creation of one. Human battlefields and spousal abuse were supposedly some of the more common causes of such youkai, not sibling rivalry.

"Remember the Unmother? This is thing was born from what happened here. From us," Sesshoumaru said.

He saw Inuyasha's jaw drop as something seized Sesshoumaru's legs, wrapping thin arms around him in a way that made him tremble.

Sesshoumaru looked down slowly at the mess of brown hair buried in his hakama, looking for something to tell him what he was seeing wasn't real. "Rin…" he rasped.

A man stood behind them, watching the taiyoukai with curiosity. "Rin is bound to me by the servants of the underworld, which you could not cut even if I had not hidden your beloved Tenseiga. It has already been used on her."

Sesshoumaru put his hand down, and ran his claws through Rin's hair. It was the same impossibly thick brown silk that he discovered after giving Rin her first good bath when she first started to travel with them. The sloppy side-ponytail was there, tied in a strange knot that would have seemed random to anyone else. His nose told him it was Rin, and his ears told him the heart in her chest was racing. She was there with him and so beautifully alive.

He looked up at the black-shrouded man, whose face he could not see. "Who are you?"

"Shikyo," he replied. "Understand this: even killing me won't set Rin free. If you do so, she will continue back to Hell with me. I can assure you that I will not make eternity easy for her."

Sesshoumaru growled and fisted his free hand, knowing his Tenseiga wouldn't work against the servants of the underworld for Rin again. The statement that Shikyo was trying to make was clear; if Sesshoumaru did as Shikyo wanted, he could have his precious little Rin back.

"What do you want, Bastard?" Inuyasha shouted.

Shikyo briefly glanced at Inuyasha and said, "Sesshoumaru, if your brother meets his end here, I will give you this."

Amber met amber in an intense, emotional glare.

There were things that were relevant to the situation. The first and most important fact was that it had been Inuyasha who killed Rin. Secondly, she was right there, alive and breathing and hugging onto him. Rin depended on him to make everything better. He couldn't let her down. Not again. Never again. He also couldn't kill his own brother.

Yet, someone had to die.

What father wouldn't kill for his child?

Sesshoumaru could kill Shikyo, but he'd never be able to sleep or think or do anything knowing that something so awfully wicked had control of Rin.

However, he also realized that if he killed Inuyasha, Shikyo would also gain a great amount of power, since he was created from their hate and their pain. Really, Shikyo had nothing to lose. Whether he killed Inuyasha and fed the youkai his betrayal or let Rin die and fed him his agony, Shikyo gained.

"If I die, Rin gets to live?" Inuyasha asked.

"Precisely," Shikyo replied.

Inuyasha bit down on his bottom lip, trying to hold in the curses that he really wanted to scream at the youkai. He could see the turmoil in Sesshoumaru's eyes, but he knew that ultimately, Rin was his child. Sesshoumaru would do anything for her, no matter how audacious or contrary to the laws of nature it was.

At that moment, Inuyasha took his strength and maturity and that tiny amount of cunning he had and put it to use.

If a selfish, hateful act would empower the youkai, what would a selfless act do?

It only made sense that the monster they created with their hatred and resentment should be unmade using the opposite course of action. Shikyo was depending on them behaving as selfish and immaturely as they always had, but things had changed.

Once, Inuyasha had been weak and afraid, but he had grown. The concept of 'honor,' meant nothing to him, and he felt no need to fight for reputation or power. It was pointless. When he had hunted and fought against Naraku, he became the champion of the brokenhearted, the victims, and the people who had been too weak to defend themselves from Naraku's cruelty and malice. The strength he found was for them.

It was for grieving lovers, angry fighters, mourning widows, and orphaned children just like the one attached to Sesshoumaru. To let that girl die, however she lived in the first place, would be contrary to everything that helped him find his strength in the first place. He had fought too hard for self-respect to throw it all away. He would rather die than wake up and hate his himself like he had as a child. It was a both a tragic and convenient realization.

"Promise," Inuyasha said.

Maybe it wasn't natural that she lived again, maybe he would be better for the world alive, and maybe he had no obligation to do what he was thinking about doing, but everyone had to die someday, right?

He had always been fearful of death as a child, and dreaded he would die alone and unloved for being a hanyou. No one wants to die for something so petty, and no one wants to spend their last moments alone. He had been close enough to death enough times to know that.

Rin looked around Sesshoumaru's puffy hakama and Inuyasha saw how terrified she was. The shaking hands that clung to the white fabric tightened when she looked up at Inuyasha and screamed, "Please don't hurt him, Sesshoumaru-sama! He's your brother!"

Shikyo walked slowly toward them and said, "The instant you die, this girl will be released."

Inuyasha smirked at Rin. She wasn't the only brave one.

Inuyasha held the open end of Tessaiga's empty sheath to his heart, knowing his beloved blade was close, resting just at the bottom of the frigid lake. He closed his eyes and called the sword before Shikyo or Sesshoumaru even realized what he was doing.

The cold, rough, untransformed Tessaiga impaled his heart, and Inuyasha stared down at the bloody tip that protruded from his chest. The blade vibrated, as if it were angry he had tricked it, and he fell to his knees. His heart contracted around the frozen steel and he leaned forward, watching blood run out of the corners of his mouth onto the snow. He flashed a smile at Shikyo, and tried to laugh, but all his lungs wouldn't allow it.

His eyes rolled around, but he suddenly couldn't see Sesshoumaru anymore. "Sesshou..maru?" he coughed.

"I am right here," he softly said. Sesshoumaru's clawed hand gently wrapped around his shoulder, and then another around the hilt of Tessaiga, which stuck out of his back. The warding spell burned Sesshoumaru's hand immediately, but he steadily and carefully pulled the sword out of Inuyasha's back.

"Arrgh!" Inuyasha growled as the metal was slowly slid out of him.

Tessaiga, the source of some of their most violent and hurtful conflicts, was cast aside. It no longer mattered. Whatever had been said and done because of it was irrelevant.

Inuyasha was dying.

Inuyasha fell back not into the snow, but into Sesshoumaru's arms. Blood literally gushed out of his chest, soaking his clothes and his brother. He watched himself dying, and silently lamented all the things he had never gotten to do. He thought about Abi, and worried about how she'd take the news yet another dog had died on her. He thought about Rin, and wondered if he would have been a good father.

Shikyo cracked down the middle and crumbled. His bind to Rin was weakening with Inuyasha's life, and the hate that had spawned him had been replaced with appreciation, affection, loyalty…and love. Love between the siblings that had sworn dozens of times to erase each other from the face of the earth. Love from the unlovable and unloving, the unruly and the cold, the Killing Perfection and his little brother.

He died, along with the knowledge of Tenseiga's location.

The forest began an eerily fast defrost as if it spring was happening in fast motion. The temperature climbed, the snow started to melt, and green leaves started to unfurl on the trees.

Despite the rising temperature, a painful chill coursed through Inuyasha's body and he realized he could barely move. "C-Cold," he whispered.

The world went black for and he was suddenly very aware that his heart had stopped beating. Everything was cold and dark, and his senses were starting to fade, flickering in and out. He heard Sesshoumaru's heartbeat, and the sloshing of ice on the lake, and then silence.

_A scream, Abi's scent..._

And then darkness.

_A clawed hand holding his..._

And then darkness.

_A word, Abi's voice — "…pregnant.." His eyes jerked open for a second and he found her eyes one last time. She was crying..._

And then darkness.

_His eyes rolled up uncontrollably and he stared into Sesshoumaru's amber eyes..._

And then darkness.

_"Thank you, Brother," a soft whisper..._

Inuyasha waited for another flash of reality, to hear or smell or see or feel something, but all that he could sense was the nothingness he surrendered himself to.

Death.

* * *

**Please Review!**

**Chapter Sixteen: Regret  
**

Special thanks to Your voice of Reason., Kur7Kagnluv, 43InAsha, Britt-sempai, Arodwen, no life king, JasmineBaby, elvenarcher516, musicallady1, Diana Lewis, Kat57, shadowblade-tara, AngelWingsbaka, BlazingMidnightRain, Angel2005399, supersillee06, lady555, kimoukai, ArizonaBay, aimdiscord, flirtymiyu, Dominik Journot, sayuri-girl, juusan-ya, Ashley, Membar, darknessofmyheart, TheMikoShivae, LadySafire, Dragoness Fohama, dimpleslane1992, Kibi.s2, kiiyb78, and TAJE!

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	16. Regret

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**Reconciliation**  
_By Miss Kagura  
_Chapter Sixteen — Regret

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Sesshoumaru found his Tenseiga impaled in the bark of Goshinboku on the third day.

They were two days too late to save Inuyasha.

Claws dug into the bark of the tree. Tighter and tighter they clenched the wood until they strained against the delicate fingers they protruded from. Fangs pierced puffy red lips; the taste of blood was ignored. The flesh of the tree creaked as the hand fisted. Long, deadly claws snapped off in the tree, along with the firm flesh that held them to the bone.

"That's enough, Abi," Sesshoumaru barked.

The girls were a mess. Rin hadn't said a word since Inuyasha died and had returned to being a timid shadow of a girl that had first come to him in the forest. There was guilt in her eyes; she didn't understand he had died for her. Rin thought he had died _because_ of her.

Kagome had been crying nearly non-stop, chattering constantly about Inuyasha. She watched Inuyasha grow from the insecure, untrusting hanyou she unsealed from a tree into a champion. And then she watched him die. Every conversation they had, every worry that had burdened her heart, and all the emotional strife that had shaped her into the woman she was had been touched somehow by Inuyasha. Maybe she didn't love him like she loved Sesshoumaru, but he was a part of who she was.

Abi, however, was devastated.

"Come sit with me," he said.

The cat sat next to him, and he examined one of her hands. "Your fingers are torn up."

"I don't care," she sniffed.

He heard her teeth grind together as she rocked back and nearly fell off the branch. He narrowed his eyes. Youkai pregnancies were notoriously famous for causing pain. "How long have you been pregnant? Don't lie to me. I know you're fairly far along if it's already hurting you like that."

"Three months," she numbly replied.

"Kami, why would you hide something like that from Inuyasha?" Sesshoumaru asked.

"I was scared," she replied.

He squeezed her hand, careful to avoid the injuries she'd just given herself. He had a very strong suspicion that if she weren't pregnant, she might have committed suicide after they failed to retrieve Tenseiga. There was something sad and beautiful about someone who could live a couple of thousand years and fall in love with someone that hard in just a few months.

"You carry his pup. Your depression and lack of sleep will make the pup be born to early. For Inuyasha's sake and your own, go home. Eat something. Sleep. You are a mother now," he said.

She smiled bitterly and said, "This isn't easy, you know. I'm way too old to be having my first."

"You're also too stubborn to believe something silly like that," Sesshoumaru replied.

She eventually gave in and went back home with him, but he was extremely worried. When youkai bred with other youkai, the pup was generally whatever species was the strongest. Only when they bred with humans was a hybrid produced. Taiyoukai almost never ventured outside of their own circles because other youkai, especially middle-class ones like Abi, had complicated, often disastrous pregnancies. On top of that, a female was in her prime breeding stage from sexual maturity at about seventeen until about three hundred.

Considering that Abi had a very clear recollection of things that happened in excess of two thousand years before, she was easily past her 'prime.' He wouldn't have truly been surprised to find out she was one of the oldest youkai he knew. She was smug and bitter, two trademarks of extraordinarily long life.

And yet, she looked at Inuyasha like a person could only look at their first love. That fragile, loving glance was only for Inuyasha. They were such an unlikely, mismatched couple. She was too old for him, too feline, and he was hardly the most stable, mature man. It worked though. She let Inuyasha be rough and wild with her, maybe even begged for it. Sesshoumaru didn't know and didn't want to know. He just knew that he had been permitted to let himself go as a full-blooded taiyoukai with her, which was something even he wasn't allowed to do because it would kill Kagome.

That night, he stared up at the ceiling for hours while Kagome slept.

Inuyasha had lived a terrible life, and that was Sesshoumaru's fault for the most part. He knew it. He was miserable, hungry, and injured during most of his childhood. That miserable child he had hated so much grew into an equally dejected adult, who wandered the earth for 150 years doing little else than meeting his most basic needs.

Inuyasha found something worth living for, and Naraku took her away, leaving him in a sleep that should have lasted for all eternity.

Kagome came and set him free, and then Sesshoumaru took her away as well.

Still, Inuyasha gave up his love and his happy home for Sesshoumaru. He died for what Sesshoumaru would have died for.

Sesshoumaru told himself he'd protect Inuyasha's woman and pup for everything he was worth.

Everything was wrong. His heart was unsettled and felt like it had been stomped on. Their blood bond seemed to become impossibly strong in the seconds before Inuyasha died. He could literally feel his brother fade out, losing his grip on the world as he spiraled into the darkness.

Kagome woke up when he shifted and reached out for him. "You need sleep," she murmured.

"I ruined Inuyasha's life, and then he died for my child," he answered.

Kagome sat up, and then crawled into his lap as he sat up. Her loving arms wrapped around his neck, and she gently kissed his lips. When he didn't kiss her back, she ran her fingers through his hair and reached into his hakama. She thought he needed distraction, comfort, and intimacy, even though she knew Inuyasha had touched Sesshoumaru far, far deeper than she probably ever would. His life and his blood had struck him so deeply it seemed like part of Sesshoumaru had been ripped out.

She almost couldn't even believe Inuyasha was dead. He was the first person she saw when she first came through the well, and the first man she loved. They had held on to each other tightly, at least in the emotional sense, as they traveled across Japan with broken hearts and big dreams. Tests, ramen, shards, and sit commands all seemed almost unreal to her now that he was gone. She was so proud of him; he had come so far and grown so much.

Sesshoumaru's hand caught hers as she stroked his unresponsive length. Suddenly, he couldn't bear the idea of her touching him at all. She was one more thing he had stolen from his brother. He regretted it, and hated the love in her eyes. She was there because he wished to hurt Inuyasha in the worst way imaginable. The fact that they had fallen in love and Inuyasha had found someone else as well didn't change what he had done.

The woman he used to inflict misery on his own brother was trying to comfort him, and it made him feel like a monster.

He slid out of the bed and dressed without saying a word.

"Sesshoumaru? Where are you going?" Kagome asked.

When he didn't even look at her, she got out of bed and tried to hold him, hugged him from behind. "I'm right here, Sesshoumaru. Everything is okay."

His clawed hands grasped hers and pushed them off his body. "Nothing is 'okay.'"

"All it takes is a little time," she said.

When Sesshoumaru's hands fisted, she heard the sickening _drip-drip_ of blood falling to the floor. "Is time going to hold Inuyasha's pup for him?"

"You can talk to me," she calmly offered.

"I can't even look at you," he venomously hissed.

It wasn't Kagome's fault, and some part of Sesshoumaru understood that. His change was purely his fault, and it didn't make him love her any less. He just couldn't face any more reminders of what his brother's life had been like.

Sesshoumaru disappeared into the night, probably to his grave, and Kagome found herself crying for the hundredth time in just a few days. She walked outside onto the wooden porch, and silently asked the moon how it could be so bright and so beautiful when everything was so horribly wrong. He looked at her like he hated her, but she knew it was only because he was hurting. She had never been so worried about him, and he cast her feelings and her concerns away because he no longer felt he deserved them.

"You are such an IDIOT!" she screamed into the darkness.

The next breath she took turned into a sorrowful cry.

She missed Inuyasha so much, and she felt so sad that he was gone. All his life, he had wanted a family, but he wasn't going to live to hold his own pup. It was unfair and cruel. It was as if destiny teased him with happiness, just to rip it out from under him.

Sesshoumaru had taken it worse than imaginable. The regret in his eyes was so intense, she was sure his conscience was eating a hole in his very soul. Everything he had done to his little brother seemed even worse to Sesshoumaru. He seemed broken in a way that people were not meant to break. It was different when Rin died, because it was pure pain. The feelings he was struggling with this time were much worse.

Maybe it didn't hurt Sesshoumaru as bad as losing Rin had, but he hadn't caused Rin's death. Pain was natural, as unbearable as it seemed at times. The level of soul-shattering regret Sesshoumaru held was breaking him more and more with each day that went by.

Something small moved in the trees, and Kagome focused on it, trying to figure out what it was.

"Rin!" she screamed as she maneuvered through the branches to the girl.

Kagome hadn't heard Rin speak a word, although when she asked, Sesshoumaru told her she had spoken before Inuyasha died. In other words, she wasn't incapable of speaking, just unwilling. She dropped onto the branch where Rin was clinging to the trunk of a tree with tears streaming down her face. Her hands were scraped and bleeding from the tree bark.

"Rin, what are you doing? Are you trying to follow Sesshoumaru?" she asked.

Rin shook her head.

"Are you…are you trying to run away?" Kagome asked.

The girl choked back a sob and nodded. She knew she might fall out of the tree and die. She just didn't care.

Rin had danced with Death too many times. Death was always the lead, stepping on her toes and her dreams as it pulled her here and there. She helplessly fell into his rhythm, and kept dancing long after she wanted to stop. She had blisters on her soul, and a heart that was woozy from all the spinning.

She had been five the first time she faced her own death. It took the form of bandits that recklessly and quickly killed her family. She was allowed to live, because she had something else they wanted. Would she have preferred death to being robbed of what they stole from her?

The girl pursed her trembling lips. She was no one's whore. Since Sesshoumaru seemed as discontented with her existence as she was, so there wasn't a real point to make everyone think she was still the same old Rin. There had been too many dances, too much pain, and not enough flowers.

"Why won't you talk?" Kagome gently asked.

Rin stared at her with wide, frightened eyes. Didn't she get it? No one wanted her. Her life had cost someone who had a life to live far too much. What's the point in talking if no one really cares what she says?

She glanced down at the fog. The fall would kill her, probably instantly.

_Would you like to dance?_

Wolves. Hellhounds. Inu Hanyou.

Three times her body had been broken and three times she was put back together and forced to breathe again. How many times could the body be wrecked before the soul shattered with it? Did they really expect her to just be okay?

Rin let go of the tree trunk while Kagome tried to figure out her cryptic behavior and joined her in trying to figure out where she planned on going in the first place. Why was she running away? Where did she plan on running to? It was senseless.

_Yes, I would like to dance._

Kagome gasped and screamed as Rin dove off the branch like a person would dive into a swimming pool. "RIN!"

Rin never made a sound, plummeting toward the fog. She would fall, fall, fall forever and ever, to a place Sesshoumaru would never look at her the way he had that day, like he didn't _want_ to do whatever it took to save her. That was a look a father would never have.

She waited for the impact, but it never came.

Sesshoumaru held her in front of him, with his claws wrapped around her waist. His sad, disappointed amber eyes searched hers for some sort of proof that he was wrong. He knew she knew that all she had to do was call for him. He had rescued her from near-fatal falls before. The fact that she hadn't cried out for him said that she didn't want to be saved.

"Why?" he asked.

She fisted her hands and started to beat on his chest. Tears streamed down her face. "You don't want Rin here!" she screamed. "So I don't want to be here either!"

Rin though he had dropped her when she felt herself falling again, but he had collapsed to the ground, as if she had stabbed him in the heart. All the years, all the fights, and she had never seen him collapse like that. He held her so close, her nose touched his. She closed her eyes and looked away, and his head fell to her left shoulder.

Sesshoumaru inhaled her scent, and it was spiked with the pain of rejection. His little Rin thought he didn't love her anymore, and that he didn't want her to be there. A few people knew they were practically co-dependent when she had been alive, but this…this was the depth of it. They were connected, and nothing, including repeated visits to the afterlife, could change that. She had just desperately struck him, screaming at him for freedom, for death, for separation…

Rin felt his chest jerk, and then he stilled completely for a few seconds.

She had been gone for months, and sometimes all he could think about was what he would do if she was back. He thought about all the things he wanted to say, the hugs he wanted to give, and the little girl he wanted to watch grow into a woman. He had failed her, completely. She was a child that felt lost and alone and unwanted. His child.

Sesshoumaru nuzzled her neck and let out a heart-breaking, primal canine cry that made her bones vibrate.

The sound he made surprised Sesshoumaru as much as it did Rin. His father had made a similar whine once when he was a pup and had gotten lost in a very dangerous place. Rin had become lost in a very different way, but he still called out to find her.

He sat up, frightened he had scared her, but she stared at him, fearlessly. She understood what he had just done, even if she had never seen or heard his call before. She just knew. It was a desperate cry to find his precious pup.

And just like that, she found him in the confused, darkness of her mind. The doubt, the fear, and the resentment were pushed out from between them as she hugged his neck. He left mud in her hair as his claws lightly combed through her hair, and his other hand rubbed her back in circles.

"If…" she started, suddenly feeling ashamed of the question she had to know the answer to.

"I would have done anything to have you back. It's what fathers do," he answered.

She sniffled and nodded in understanding. "But he was your brother."

He stood up and pulled her to her feet. "Someday, when you are a mother, you'll understand that it didn't matter."

Sesshoumaru returned Rin to the house, and left the forest.

Just after dawn, he arrived at the Inu Fortress.

He snuck into a home that was rightfully his, carefully avoiding detection, and maneuvered to his goal. Sesshoumaru had no desire to fight anyone, especially his wretched cousin, Hoshi, who was responsible for the ruin his father's empire was falling into.

His mother, Nikkou, guardian of the Meidou-Seki, a gateway to Hell, eyed him with curiosity and disapproval when he leapt in front of her and carefully placed Inuyasha's body on the ground.

"Use the Meidou-Seki," he said.

* * *

**Please Review!**

_**Chapter Seventeen — Proud**__  
No Preview! It would give everything away!_

Author's Note: Yes, this is a short-chapter. It can't be combined with the next one though. Don't set me on fire for the way Sesshoumaru is acting yet. When something bad happens, sometimes people lash out against others, especially if they are somehow close to the tragedy.

Special thanks to BlazingMidnightRain, kagome past and present, Airen2, supersillee06, AngelWingsbaka, LadySafire, TheMikoShivae, Arodwen, sayuri-girl, flirtymiyu, no life king, Stray Angel1, restive silence, sorata-chan, shadowblade-tara, Amadoni, llebreknit, ArizonaBay, Nicole, Dominik Journot, dedanaan, Kibi.s2, blueishadow, kimoukai, Kagome357, musicallady1, juusan'ya, Foxfire Inari, kittyb78, Nilee, mangadreams, and Dragoness Fohama!


	17. Proud

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**Reconciliation**  
_By Miss Kagura  
_Chapter Seventeen — Proud

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_A scream, Abi's scent..._

And then darkness.

_A clawed hand holding his..._

And then darkness.

_A word, Abi's voice — "…pregnant.." His eyes jerked open for a second and he found her eyes one last time. She was crying... _

And then darkness.

_His eyes rolled up uncontrollably and he stared into Sesshoumaru's amber eyes..._

And then darkness.

"_Thank you, Brother," a soft whisper..._

Inuyasha waited for another flash of reality, to hear or smell or see or feel something, but all that he could sense was the nothingness he surrendered himself to.

Death.

He felt like his whole body was slowly being frozen as he fell through the abysmal darkness of death. It spread toward his heart, pulling his soul into the Netherworld while he repeated a word in his head, over and over again.

_Pregnant…_

What was that supposed to mean? He was sure it was Abi's voice, and Abi's scent, but what was it she was trying to say? Was she pregnant? Was she telling him she wasn't? No, that certainly didn't make any sense. No one runs to a dying lover and screams, "I'm not pregnant!" It would only be worth mentioning if she was carrying his pup.

"I'm going to be a father?" he asked the void.

He answered his own question as his heart metaphorically flopped. "No, I guess I'm not, am I?"

The cold had spread to his torso, and was quickly nearing his heart. After what seemed to be only a few seconds, he felt a stabbing pain in his chest as he was ripped across the gateway between the living and the dead. For the first time since he had made his fatal decision, he felt afraid as he was once again overcome by the darkness.

He was afraid of becoming one of the countless souls of Hell crying out for redemption. It was something that had haunted him since the saga with So'unga, the sword that broke through the barrier between the Netherworld before his eyes. Was that his fate? Or, would he fall forever into the darkness like the Meidou? The only thing that served as any sort of comfort was that he had taken the place of a child in whatever was to happen. This darkness, this fright...it was scary even for an adult that wasn't scared of much.

There was a flash of light that briefly pierced the darkness, and a few minutes later, a sound. His senses were coming to life again, flickering in and out just as they had when he died, only this time, they seemed to take him toward whatever light he was seeing.

When it was over, Inuyasha found himself staring up into the same amber eyes he had seen as he died. Sesshoumaru had brought him back!

He let out a relieved sigh, and calmly looked around, trying to figure out where Sesshoumaru had moved his body.

That was when he realized the thick, jagged purple lines on the face that owned 'Sesshoumaru's' eyes. He knew the face…

"Father?" Inuyasha said.

Touga frowned and said, "You were supposed to live a long, good life."

He sat up and looked around at the strange cavernous room. This was what he was supposed to do for the rest of eternity? He was relieved there was no explicit pain and suffering, and his father certainly didn't look upset to be dead, but there were things he had to do. "I'm not staying here," he muttered.

"It's impossible to escape. Besides, it's quite peaceful here," Touga said, placing a hand on his son's shoulder.

Inuyasha growled, "I don't want peace! Peace is for people who have already done all the shit they need to do."

Inuyasha wanted to tease and fuck and lick and kiss his mate. He wanted to see his pup take his first breaths, and teach him how to do all the things he needed to learn. A few months of being happy was just not enough, and he wasn't about to accept that he wouldn't get to be with the family he waited two entire centuries to have.

"If you're here, you've completely crossed over. Not even the Tenseiga can resurrect you," Touga said. "As if Sesshoumaru would ever use it on you. He's not the one that sent you here, is he?"

Inuyasha arched his brows at the way his father spoke of Sesshoumaru, as if his older brother was a disappointment to him. Touga acted like he expected Sesshoumaru to have done something wretched to Inuyasha, which despite being true, upset him. "I'm not staying here," he firmly repeated.

"How did you become a full-blooded youkai?" Touga asked suspiciously.

"I decided I didn't want to be a hanyou anymore, and then I made myself into something else. I don't really give a shit about the laws of nature or whatever you look like you're about to explain to me. I do whatever the hell I want," Inuyasha snapped as he maneuvered out of the smaller cavern into one that was slightly larger.

Touga watched his son carefully. There was something on the tip of the boy's tongue, something that was making him act like he was. Most people who died woke up in the Netherworld and didn't really pursue escaping. After painful deaths, wars, sickness, or whatever ailment rendered their physical bodies incapable of living, most souls were happy for rest. "I assume this is about a female," he said.

Inuyasha became still instantly and turned carefully toward his father. "She's pregnant. I have to get back."

"Tell me about her," he curiously said.

"She's sly, a little mischievous, enjoys getting me into trouble," Inuyasha said, intentionally dodging the fact that it was his father's concubine he wanted to get back to so badly. "And if I don't find some way out of this damn place, I'll go crazy."

"It's _Hell_, Son. If it was easy to escape, everyone would do it," Touga said.

Inuyasha's eyes focused on the red jewel that stuck up over one of his father's shoulders. "That's the So'unga," he said, remembering the sword that possessed him. "That sword…I have seen what it can do. With that, I might be able to get out."

"If you did somehow escape with it, the So'unga would be among the living again, and I think we both know why we can't allow that," Touga said. "Besides, the sword told me it possessed you, which means you weren't meant to wield it."

Was his father telling him 'no?'

"Death is something we all have to reconcile with, Inuyasha. This girl you think you have to get back to will mourn you, but she'll also keep living as your mother did," Touga said.

Inuyasha gave his father a tight-lipped scowl as he remembered his mother. She loved him, and he knew it, but Izayoi cried every day of his life and then committed suicide. Abi wouldn't do something like that, but the fact remained that if he didn't find some way out, she'd be left alone with their pup.

It also meant he'd miss out on everything that had been so out of reach for so long. The life he had always wanted was dangled in front of him, and now he was farther away than ever. He was separated from his pregnant mate and the brother he had finally reconciled with by more than distance.

"Besides, if you had the So'unga, Sesshoumaru would all but kill you to have it," Touga said.

Inuyasha froze.

"You _knew_ Sesshoumaru would try to kill me over Tessaiga, didn't you?" he asked. "You knew he'd look for it. You knew he'd find it…and that we'd fight over it. What the fuck kind of father sets his sons against each other?"

"Someone had to teach him compassion," Touga said.

"And you thought that making us fight would do that?" Inuyasha yelled.

Touga narrowed his eyes at Inuyasha and said, "Don't question me."

"Why? Because you're my father? Because you're the Great Dog Demon? I don't even know you and I hate you. You didn't do thing for me except to make damn sure I had a hard life," Inuyasha growled. "I run into your allies all the time. You can't stand there and tell me Toutousai would have left me alone to starve as a kid. You could have asked him to look after me. You could have left me with Abi. I would have been safe. I would have been fed."

"It was Sesshoumaru's responsibility to take care of you!" Touga growled back.

"But he didn't because you gave him every reason to hate me," Inuyasha angrily hissed.

Touga turned away from Inuyasha. "Would you really have given up your blade for your apathetic brother?"

"I would die for my 'apathetic brother.'" Inuyasha said. His hand grasped the hilt of the So'unga, and he pulled it from the sheath on Touga's back. He felt the sword's aura flare out; it was seeking to dominate him. As a full youkai, Inuyasha easily held it, amazed by the power that coursed through his body. "You owe me this."

Touga slid the long sheath off his back and handed it to him. "Strength and success in battle didn't make me a good father." Inuyasha felt his father pull his hair upward, and then tie it back just like his was. The So'unga was too long to wear at his hip, so Touga fastened the sheath to Inuyasha's back.

The only things Touga had ever given his son were the fire rat robes Inuyasha still wore and Tessaiga. Now, he would inherit the So'unga as well. He hadn't given them wisdom, or peace. All he passed on to his sons was a legacy of violence that had clearly already taken a heavy toll on them..

"It still probably won't be possible, but I'll take you where you need to go," Touga said.

* * *

"No." 

Sesshoumaru set his jaw and growled. "Why?"

Was his mother telling him 'no?'

His mother glared at him with equal obstinacy. It was something he had inherited from her, along with the moon on his forehead. For all practical purposes, that moon was a mark of tenacity, of an unwillingness to give in even a little. She never compromised, never lowered her chin. Not when her mate brought his concubine around, and not when he completely left her for a human.

"The Meidou-Seki was made to help mature Tenseiga. It had only a limited amount of power, almost all of which has been used up. If I opened the gate to hell for you, the stone would have no power to bring you back," Nikkou said. Her eyes fell to Tessaiga, which was bundled up in Inuyasha's haori. It was a sign that Tessaiga still rejected Sesshoumaru, even when Inuyasha was dead. The Tessaiga had the Meidou Zangetsuha skill that would allow Sesshoumaru to escape from Hell, but Sesshoumaru was incapable of using it if Tessaiga rejected him.

Nikkou glanced at Inuyasha' body. He was covered in dirt; he had been buried and then dug up by her son. "Why the sudden concern for this one? Of all the people everywhere, why does the death of this one bother you so? He is a bastard pup, no matter what he does to his blood."

"He is my brother," Sesshoumaru said.

"You seek to do the impossible. There are two barriers that separate the world of the living from Hell, one that cannot be broken from the inside, and one that cannot be broken from the outside. Your Tenseiga will easily break through the first, but will be ineffective on the second," Nikkou explained.

"I will find a way," Sesshoumaru declared.

"You are being foolish, Sesshoumaru. I will not allow my precious son to throw his life away for such a pitiful—" she started. Her sentence was stopped by a hand around her throat.

Narrow, angry eyes threatened her, his mother, with violence. "You will _not_ speak of my brother in that manner, Mother."

"If you fail to save your half-brother, you'll be trapped in the Meidou forever," Nikkou said. "Are you doing this because you want him back or because you can't live with yourself? You look so guilty."

Sesshoumaru reached for the stone around her neck and yanked. He didn't care what his mother thought about what he intended to do. He was going to do it anyway, and he didn't need anyone's approval. There were things that needed to happen in his life and Inuyasha was supposed to be there for them. He and Inuyasha were supposed to commiserate about their women and take over their father's empire again.

There was a fleeting image of raising pups together like a real family. He had as little experience on that issue as Inuyasha, having grown up in a family that saw constant turmoil. There was never peace, never happiness, and never stability. As time went by, the 'family' just broke into more and more pieces, until everyone had been hurt. Abi, his mother, his father, Izayoi, Inuyasha, and he all shared the scars of his father's broken home.

He twisted the stone, and leapt into the Meidou that opened up in the sky. He landed on the path to Hell, and the Meidou-Seki cracked, as his mother had warned. It had no power left. Sesshoumaru knew the way; his memory of this place was so clear. Into the darkness he charged, knowing exactly what he would find on the other side.

When Rin had died, this place had haunted his dreams. The darkness, the smell of death, the dead souls…it was both terrifying and disgusting. He ran to the back of the massive room, to this barrier his mother spoke of. It was spongy, and reeked of jyaki and death. He unsheathed Tenseiga and slammed it into the barrier, but Tenseiga barely penetrated it.

Just on the other side of the second barrier, Inuyasha paced along the wall. His senses were going crazy, and he knew there was no way in Hell they were right. Literally. He put his hand on the black wall, and then his ear. There was nothing to hear.

"There are two layers of the barrier. One can only be broken from the inside, this one, and another that can only be broken from the Meidou," Touga said.

Inuyasha walked farther down the wall, running his flat palm along the surface until he felt heat. The So'unga started to rattle violently in its sheath, and Inuyasha smirked. His senses were right!

Touga furrowed his brows. "That sword only does that around the other fangs. That means..."

Inuyasha growled and stabbed the barrier with So'unga, putting all of his strength into the blade as it slowly penetrated the barrier. His lips curled into a snarl as he pushed harder. He was going to hold his pup, he was going to spend a very long time with his mate, and damn it all if he wasn't going to thank his brother for giving him the chance to do all the things he had dreamed about.

Sesshoumaru saw the light coming from the other side of the barrier, but he already knew Inuyasha was on the other side.

Tenseiga and So'unga briefly touched, and the friction between the Sword of Heaven and the Sword of Hell caused a small part of the barriers to dissipate completely. An arm with twin magenta stripes reached through the light and yanked Inuyasha through as the barriers closed behind them again.

They collapsed, panting from the exertion, locked in an intense stare.

They stared like that for awhile, unable to find the right words to speak or the right thing to do next. There was such untainted and forceful sincerity that said a thousand things words never could. Everything that had tainted their bond — the resentment, the guilt, the pain, the anger, and regret — was gone.

Inuyasha blinked and suddenly became aware that one of his hands was shaking madly, but the other was still firmly held by the hand that pulled him out of Hell. There were a million things he was going to get to do because of Sesshoumaru and he knew that teaching his pup how to walk and talk would weigh so much more heavily in his heart than the things Sesshoumaru had done to hurt him.

In Hell, their father saw the striped arm of Sesshoumaru reach through the light for his brother. As much as he had hoped they would get along someday, and learn to share the world, he had never expected this. They were stronger than he had ever thought they would be, and they had clearly found passion and wisdom in their bond.

He had never been so proud.

* * *

Inuyasha quietly watched Abi as she tossed and turned in a restless sleep. She looked awful, which was a testament to her love if nothing else. He carefully slipped in between the sheets, and curled his body around hers. 

Her eyes flew open as his arms wrapped around her stomach and pulled her into his body. This was what he fought for: his woman, their pup. She started shaking in his embrace, as her hands found his. "You're really here," she whispered.

"Keh, why wouldn't I be?" Inuyasha asked.

Abi sobbed just slightly, and then smiled as she cried. "Did you hear what I said at the lake? About…?"

He rubbed her tummy and nodded. "You think I came back just to be with you? I'm here for the pup!"

Abi rolled on top of him, and rested her head on his chest. She listened to the _thump-thump_ of his heart for awhile; she was amazed that she had taken it for granted for so long. Claws lightly grazed as he pushed her yukata up, and then tore it off completely.

"I missed you," he said.

The claws on her toes unsheathed, and then hooked in his hakama, pushing it down their lips met in a hungry, angry, happy kiss.

"This isn't going to hurt the pup, right?" he asked. He didn't really know anything about pregnancy other than the basics, and suddenly felt very worried he'd somehow hurt the pup if he wasn't careful with its mother.

Her fingers tangled with his as she took his hands and gave him a reassuring smile. "You're here. Everything is going to be all right now."

The sun rose on the sleeping couple and another pair who were perched on a rock near the river, watching the sun come up. One of them held a single white flower in her grasp, spinning it around as the dawn light cast bright shades of pink and orange light on the petals. It was frighteningly symbolic; a new part of their lives was starting as a new day began.

"Sesshoumaru-sama, you always told me not to touch you before," Rin absentmindedly muttered from her place on his lap, where she was nestled in his arms. Her head rested against his shoulder as she continued to focus her attention on the small flower. They had been like this for hours, and she hadn't ever felt so safe or so close to him. She was sure he had been asleep, at least for awhile, with his head leaned back against a tree trunk. "Do you like me better now?"

Sesshoumaru gave the morning light a sated half-smile, and then dragged his claws through her hair again. "It is impossible to really love anyone with a heart infected with hate," he said.

"I don't understand," Rin said.

"I hope you never do," Sesshoumaru replied.

He tilted his head so she could see him and closed his eyes as her delicate fingers traced the twin marks on his cheeks. "I don't think," she said as her index finger followed the moon mark on his forehead, "that I can be the same as I was before."

A glimmer of brilliant color flashed under his thick lashes. "Nonsense. You will always be Rin."

She smiled weakly at him and sighed sadly. She didn't feel the way she used to. The joy didn't come so easily, the flower didn't do nearly enough to soothe her worn soul, and she felt like a miscellaneous person, one who simply didn't belong anywhere. She was getting older, and she needed some sort of definition applied to the only tie she had to the world.

The taiyoukai holding her so closely, giving her the embrace she had always wanted so badly from him, was well aware of her doubts. "I think," he said, mirroring her previous statement, "that I have earned the right to claim you as my own pup."

Rin gasped and tightened her grip on his haori.

He nuzzled her hair and gently whispered, "I will always catch you."

* * *

**The End of Part II**

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**Please Review!**

**Chapter Thirteen: An Interlude**

Author's Note: I'd like to thank all my readers for sticking with my angsty little story. It's been a lot of fun for me to write, and has helped me mature as a writer. As of the posting of this chapter, this story now has 190 alerts, 100 favorites, and 30,000 hits. Thank you all for the support!

Special thanks to AngelWingsbaka, supersillee06, BlazingMidnightRain, elvenarcher516, TheMikoShivae, llebreknit, kagome past and present, Britt-sempai, sesshyandkags4ever, ArizonaBay, mangadreams, Mia, Tajiya, LadySafire, sayuri-girl, juusan'ya, flirtymiyu, kzb637, Sugar0o, BlueBloodAssasin, silencio1111, Domink Journot, sorata-chan, Kibi.S2, kittyb78, Breesasha, and Dragoness Fohama!


	18. Interlude

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Chapter Eighteen — Interlude

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Kagome watched the summer rain fall softly on their home.

The beautiful summer forest brought flowers and miserable summer heat. Unbearable heat was the perfect companion to nausea and the headaches she'd been having for the past couple of months. Her hands roamed over the slight bulge of her belly. She would give birth during the next winter, and until then, she'd be cursed with cravings for food that didn't exist yet, like rocky road ice cream and hot dogs.

She turned to see Inuyasha sitting next to her on the porch. "How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Hot," Kagome complained. "How's Abi?"

"Sore," he chuckled.

His fire rat haori had been converted into a blanket that the newborn loved dearly. Kagome wasn't sure the pup had been put down more than a few minutes in the day since he had been born. "Katsu pretends he doesn't mind if I hold him, but he'll scream if I put him down. He likes to eat though," Inuyasha said.

"Hates to be ignored, but is unappreciative. Loves to eat? That doesn't sound like _anyone_ that I know," Kagome laughed.

"Keh," he indignantly said as a broad smile formed on his lips. "You take after me, don't you?" he asked the pup, who responded by snapping down on the finger that brushed along his face with a toothless mouth.

Kagome giggled and said, "That's a 'yes,' Inuyasha."

The pup looked frighteningly similar to Inuyasha. Both had the same markings and hair, but Katsu had bright green eyes. They weren't cat eyes, like Abi's, but they were the same shade of viridian. He was already showing signs of having a mischievous personality, occasionally biting and growling when he was ready to eat.

"Can you believe this? You're a father and I'm going to have a pup soon too. It feels strange to think that not that long ago, we were running all over Japan arguing about tests and shards and ramen," Kagome said.

Inuyasha turned his attention back to the pup. "Just wait until ramen is invented, Katsu. You are going to love it, just like me," he cooed.

He looked up at Kagome and realized how ridiculous he sounded. "Sorry, this pup makes me act a little silly, I guess," he said, blushing.

Kagome smiled and shrugged. "It's nice to see you like this. You're happy," she said. His lips twisted up into a happy goofy smirk that she was becoming familiar with. "I'm getting used to that dumb grin of yours."

"Keh, just a few more months and it'll be your turn to smile like an idiot all the time," he jokingly bit back. He saw Kagome's eyes darken for a minute, but she nodded anyway. "What's wrong?"

"I'm really worried about Sesshoumaru and Rin. You've heard Rin at night, right?" she asked.

Inuyasha nodded. The girl had it bad since she had come back. It was like she didn't know how to be happy anymore, and at night, she would cry herself to sleep, only to slip into terrible nightmares that would leave her shaking and screaming in her sleep. Rin was trying so hard to make convince everyone she was okay, but it was painfully obvious that she was engaged in a constant fight with depression.

"Sesshoumaru isn't getting much sleep. You know he hears everything with those ears of his," Kagome explained. "He feels helpless. I convinced him some time with Sango and Miroku and other humans might help because it might, but mostly, I just want him to rest. And…I'd like to have him to myself for awhile. I know that sounds selfish, considering the circumstances."

Inuyasha snorted. "You, selfish? Don't be dumb."

Inuyasha handed the bundle over to Kagome, and she carefully took it, holding Katsu close. "You're a big boy, aren't you? Yes you are!"

"I'm going to go find something for dinner. You're the most unselfish person I know, Kagome. It's okay for you to want things, especially when it comes to Sesshoumaru. But, it's not like he's neglecting you because he's a jerk," Inuyasha said.

He leapt through the trees and Kagome's nose picked up on a sharp scent. How convenient that Inuyasha would hand her the pup right when he needed to have his diaper changed. She sighed. "Osuwari."

She took Katsu inside and carefully changed his diaper, wishing disposables existed in the Sengoku Jidai. When she was almost done, her senses tickled her brain. Something was there, but it was trying to hide, like Abi did from time to time. She quickly turned, putting herself between the youkai standing in the door and the pup.

"Who are you?" she asked.

The man arched his brows as a metal bow suddenly appeared in Kagome's hands, followed by an arrow made of pure spiritual power.

Kagome heard the metallic ting of a sword being unsheathed and let the arrow go. The youkai flattened out on the floor, dodging the arrow, and then pounced. He was knocked out of the air by a solid blow to the head from a wooden staff.

"Staff of Two Heads!" Jaken squawked as a wall of fire separated the assassin from what he had pounced toward — the pup.

"He's trying to kill Katsu!" Kagome screamed.

She created another glowing arrow and aimed for the floor. This time, the assassin leapt up and over the arrow's path. Her reflexes kicked in and she blocked his sword with her bow, and then changed it into spear form. She shoved him back, and reached to her hair, pulling out the tiny silver cherry leaf they had taken from the deceased celestial maiden. Kagome dropped it, and then stood on it when it transformed to its full size. Roots emerged from the leaf, wrapping around her ankles so she wouldn't fall.

The assassin saw the metallic glint and swung his sword.

Kagome bent her knees so the leaf was perpendicular to the floor, and it deflected the sword. Then, she threw her knees back the other way, so her body flew forward, spear in hand. It flashed a bright shade of blue as she shoved it through his throat, nearly completely decapitating him.

"There's something else out there," Kagome said, trying very hard not to look at the carnage she had just made.

Jaken handed her Katsu as the flames from his staff suddenly went out. "What are you waiting for?"

"Eh? Oh…Right!" Kagome said.

She crouched low on the leaf and flew out the door, and then leaned her weight on her left foot, so the leaf flew straight up. Katsu complained at the position and the motion, but Kagome flew up, up, up, until the forest was just a blur beneath them.

The pup was screaming and nipping at her fingers, completely upset by the fire, and the flying, and being so far away from his mother's scent. Kagome rocked him gently, but he refused to calm down even a little. "Shhh…it's okay, Puppy. Aunt Kagome won't let anyone hurt you," she calmly said. "I think someone must have found out about you. You're very important, you know, Heir-to-the-West."

The squirming bundle seemed to still just slightly, and the biting stopped. She relaxed, until the pup's nose started to nuzzle around her chest. "You're quite the handful, you know that? Someone just tried to assassinate you and all you care about is food."

Kagome and Katsu hovered in the leaf for awhile, and Kagome wondered if it was safe to go back down. She couldn't sense anything from where she was, but that also probably meant no one could sense her and Katsu. She rocked the leaf from side to side, hoping to coax the pup to sleep. Slowly, and not without a fight, Katsu's eye lids began to droop.

She finally slowly descended, and found Inuyasha's aura, which she flew toward, careful not to wake the pup. Her aura was hidden, clamped down tight around her and Katsu, so no one would sense him. Inuyasha was standing in the forest with his hand inside of another youkai's stomach. She recognized the aura; it was the second one she had sensed earlier.

Inuyasha's eyes were the color of the blood that spilled onto the ground. He growled and Kagome saw his arm tense as he squeezed one of the youkai's organs. He screamed and clawed into the tree bark, and Inuyasha growled into his ear, "Who sent you here?"

"H-H-Hosshi," the assassin moaned painfully.

Kagome saw Inuyasha jerk his arm out and hold something up in front of the youkai. His still-beating heart thumped until Inuyasha turned his claws into a fist and crushed it. His aura flared out in complete rage, and the newborn in Kagome's arms woke up, letting out a wail.

Inuyasha looked to Kagome, who was watching him with a shocked expression. She mechanically started to bounce the pup, trying to make the crying stop.

The taiyoukai closed his red eyes, and growled as he fought his rage. When he opened them again, they had returned to their natural color. "Kagome…I…I don't know what happened. Jaken told me what happened and I just went crazy."

Kagome nodded in agreement, and offered the pup to him. "I understand," she said. Inuyasha had pretty much gone into full dog mode when it came to Abi and Katsu. He had no capability to even think about allowing something that endangered either of them to live.

By the time they got back to the house, Sesshoumaru had returned and Abi had actually identified the first attacker, despite the poor condition of his corpse. "This vermin is Kang. We trained under the same master," she said. "He'll kill for anyone who pays him."

Sesshoumaru nodded, and crossed his arms as he glanced from Abi to Kagome. "Neither of you need to be involved in what needs to happen with Hoshi. It's rather impossible to hide from the Inu Guard though."

"I haven't gone home to China since I came to Japan, but I'm sure we'd be safe there," Abi offered.

"Is there a reason you stayed in Japan?" Sesshoumaru asked.

"My father traded me to your father as a concubine in the treaty that ended the Inu-Neko War. I didn't exactly feel like running home to daddy after Touga died," Abi said. "I think it's the safest choice though."

Inuyasha sighed and said, "You two should take Rin and Katsu to safety. It could take months to make Japan safe for you now that Hoshi knows about Katsu."

Kagome had a mind to argue about being sent away, but she had already lost one pup due to miscarriage and feared it would happen again. The amount of time she would be really capable of fighting was limited anyway, and even the tiny bump becoming visible threw off her balance. One look at Abi told her that the cat also wanted to fight, but the newborn clearly had all of her focus.

Kagome felt a large hand take hers and lead her out onto the porch.

"What's wrong?" Sesshoumaru asked.

"Nothing," she replied.

The taiyoukai sighed. "I didn't know Rin was going to be so sick. If I had…"

"You wouldn't have given me this pup?" Kagome offered. "I know you're stretched too thin emotionally. I don't think there's anything we can do it. Rin is not well and may not be that way for a long time."

"I thought that attention and affection might ward off the darkness in her mind, but nothing seems to help," Sesshoumaru said.

He knelt and put his ear against her stomach so he could hear the rapidly-thumping heartbeat coming from her womb. There were other noises, like the sloshing noise of tiny limbs clumsily moving through liquid.

Kagome ran her fingers through his hair and said, "Don't worry about me. I'm not going anywhere. Rin will get better, we'll have a pup, and everything will be all right. You're letting your own impatience frustrate you, you know."

He gave her a half-hearted grin and stood up to kiss her lips. Their relationship was so strained and they loved each other to death. The burdens of loving and trying to help a severely depressed child and the added pressure of what was admittedly a poorly-timed pregnancy were taking their toll. By the time Rin had her first and nearly suicidal breakdown, Kagome already had morning sickness.

Kagome certainly wasn't mad at him, because he was doing what any parent would do. He was doing what she knew she would do in his place, and did her best to help when she could. In that sense, everyone helped, even Inuyasha, who could occasionally be seen bringing in strange flowers he found during the habitual, overprotective patrolling he started during the last weeks of Abi's pregnancy.

"What if it takes months?" Kagome asked.

"I'll come to you when it's time for the pup to be born," Sesshoumaru said.

His eyes caught a glimpse of Inuyasha and Abi exchanging goodbyes over their newborn. He shook his head and turned his eyes to the forest. "The empire, the west…I don't want it anymore."

Kagome took his hand and squeezed it tightly. "What are you saying Sesshoumaru?"

Sesshoumaru glanced down at where their hands joined. He didn't want to part with her, especially in her state. His brother had just gone through the process of excitedly waiting as the pup grew and was born. Inuyasha had become protective in a primal, almost frightening way, and Sesshoumaru was oddly envious that he might be denied that right.

There were things in his personal life that demanded attention. Kagome, the pup, Rin…as he thought of the burden he inherited from his father, it was just that —an unwanted, undeserved yoke his father cast on him in death. If he went back and overthrew Hoshi and engaged in the war it would take, it would only be to retake that tremendous responsibility. It would take him away from his family the way it took his father from him, sending them into seclusion during wars and danger even in peace.

He felt Kagome's arms embrace him. "Do you remember what you told me? We're not normal people, Sesshoumaru. We can't just do what we want. We have powers and responsibilities. You were born to rule; it's in your nature, in your personality, in your blood."

"My family will suffer," Sesshoumaru said.

"A lot of other families will suffer if you walk away from what you were born to be," Kagome said. "You know, in my time, people can read thousands of pages about famine, war, tyranny, and plague in this era. It's not like there are a lot of people out there who can stop it."

He looked into her eyes and wanted to tell her he didn't give a damn about anyone else, but he knew it would only put his selfishness for his family in between them along with everything else. Was it really selfish to want to just focus on the other people in his life? The people he loved?

The world was sickly twisted.

When all Sesshoumaru cared about was duty, he was felt empty but free. Now that he had a family and they were most important, he felt like a slave.

The realization set in on him that he was sending his pup away the way he had been sent away to be safe with Abi as a child. His father didn't see him for _years_. He was someone else by the time his father got to be with him again, someone his father didn't even recognize. All the time that went by, all the things Touga never saw him do…this was what was being asked of him?

"It's okay. Everything's okay," Kagome gently murmured into his chest.

He rested his head on hers, wondering if he'd get to be the first person to hold his own pup. He had been there for the birth, assigned the task of bringing water and cloths. He saw the slippery, wet pup slide into his brother's shaking hands.

Would he get to have that moment?

"I have become my father. I will send my family away and be left with nothing but a sword to hold," he said.

She looked up and smiled gently. "You're wrong, Sesshoumaru. You don't have to do it alone because you have Inuyasha."

Sesshoumaru drew in a sharp breath as he suddenly understood one of the great mysteries of his life.

He didn't believe Inuyasha was an accident, and never had. He had seen his father avoid Abi like the plague when she went into heat and shove tea and herbs down her throat. Touga was thorough and cautious in that sense. That, of course, meant Inuyasha had been conceived intentionally, which raised all sorts of questions. It was obvious that Touga had known his death was swiftly approaching. He made every preparation, and then went out of his way to take a lover and get her pregnant.

Suddenly, it made sense.

Inuyasha's existence was proof his father really loved him and wanted them to have a better life than he did. His father knew the magnitude of the hardship and weight of the duty he left to Sesshoumaru and knew that someday the day might come that his son would want all the things he never could have. Inuyasha existed so he wouldn't have to carry the weight of the world alone when he had a family and the weight just became too much.

The guilt that flickered in his father's eyes then wasn't about his mistress. It was about the responsibility he was dropping in Sesshoumaru's lap, one that he would only be free of in death. The only thing Touga could do to lessen the load was to give him someone to share it with.

The smell of salt and the moisture soaking into his haori alerted him to the tears Kagome was crying with her head nestled in his chest. He used his fingers to tilt her head up, and looked down into her eyes. He was disappointing her as a lover, as a friend, and as a mate, and he knew it. Her emotional needs often went unmet, and he couldn't handle touching her when his senses picked up on Rin's suffering.

Kagome wasn't getting what she needed from him.

Rin wasn't getting better.

The two people who mattered most to him were both unhappy, and he felt completely helpless to fix the situation. As if that powerless feeling weren't bad enough, he had now been put in a position to send them away to be safe. He couldn't protect them from everything Hoshi would throw at them, and he knew it. An assassin had already nearly killed Katsu and he was only a day old.

He felt inadequate.

Kagome tried to calm him down when his arms moved over her back and pulled her into a kiss that spiraled into crazed desperation. The hungry touches screamed his need at her as his fingertips begged her to allow him to drive her into a state of frantic need so that he could give her release. He had nothing else to offer. There was no promise that he could be there while she struggled through the nausea and the pain of carrying their pup, or that she would have all of her needs met when things did settle down.

She wanted to give him this one thing before they parted, but her body violently revolted when he hoisted her up around his waist, and he ended up settling for holding her hair while she threw up a few seconds later.

"I'm sorry," she whimpered. "I'm just feeling very sick today."

He held her hair back and frowned. He felt like a selfish, inconsiderate brute for trying to engage her in sex when she was ill from carrying their pup. "I'm sorry," he said. "I should have been more considerate of your pregnancy."

Kagome sniffled and then choked out a sob. She too felt inadequate, unable to give Sesshoumaru what he needed when he needed it most. He never asked her for anything, ever. He was understanding and doted upon her when he could. He rubbed her back, he rubbed her feet, and she knew he felt guilty that she wanted more and he couldn't always give it.

She felt upset for wanting things he couldn't give and making him feel like a bad mate.

He felt upset for being unable to provide all the things she wanted and making her feel like she demanded too much.

"No, I just…my body isn't taking this very well. I want this. I want it so much. Could we just lie together for a few minutes?" she asked.

When he tucked her into the bed, he snuggled in next to her, and spooned his body against hers as she lay on her side. Her head rested on his arm, and her hands held the large clawed arm draped over her stomach.

"I love you," he whispered.

She hiked up the blue dress he had given her, and pushed his hakama down. Her fingers guided his hardened length to her entrance, and he eased his way in slowly, careful not to thrust or jerk her body. "I love you too," she said.

"I used to think that if two people loved each other, everything would be easy and good and everyone would be happy," she said.

He snorted in her ear and the hand on her stomach slid in between her legs. His middle finger found her clit and gave it a light pinch. His other arm wrapped around her shoulders, and one of his legs kept hers pinned in place so she couldn't move and make herself sick again. The bud hardened and blood rushed to her core as he massaged her with his throbbing manhood inside of her.

She shivered at the low-pitched canine growl that rumbled down her spine, and panted, unable to do anything but lay still. A moan escaped from her lips and she felt his cock twitch inside of her. It never failed to amaze her how much he would respond to noise, so she twisted her head back and graced one of his ears with a breathy, needy sigh.

Sesshoumaru's finger twisted with decadent intent on her swollen clit, until she came with a sharp scream and muscles that gripped his cock. It wasn't much stimulation, but it was enough for the much-needed release he had craved.

He stayed until she fell asleep, and then slipped out to Inuyasha's hut, where he found Abi packing a few things in a leather bag. "Where is my brother?" he asked.

"He went on a patrol. Kagome and I will leave in the morning," she said.

"Do you really want to go home?" Sesshoumaru asked.

Abi arched her brows and put the bag down. "I had a good life. I lived in a palace; I had a job and a place in the world as an assassin in my father's army. I was even engaged," she said. "My father started a war with yours against the advice of all of his cubs and sent us here to fight for him. When it was over, I was asked to step up and make a big sacrifice. I don't regret it."

Sesshoumaru didn't fail to notice the slightest twinge of anger in her eyes, probably the final remnants of an old grudge that had lived longer than his father.

"Some people have to make ludicrous sacrifices to fulfill their roles in the world. I did what was required to stop the war and save the rest of my kind from your father and his steel," she continued.

"Was it worth it?" Sesshoumaru asked.

"You can't think like that. The true weight of your actions shouldn't be judged by their affect on your life, but on the world as a whole. If all you were made to do is worry about what you want, you would have been born human," Abi said.

Sesshoumaru slumped down on the floor. "I wish for freedom. I suppose everyone is enslaved by something though. Farmers by the very farm that feeds them, sword smiths by their own skill, animals by their primal instincts…"

"I don't know why you came to me when you found the answer so easily on your own. You'll be somebody's wise old father soon," she said.

"Ridiculous," he mumbled under his breath.

**Please Review!**

* * *

**Part III: Exhilaration  
**_**Chapter Nineteen: Aphotic  
**__Caring for a depressed child can wreak havoc on the healthiest relationship. Separated from Sesshoumaru by the sea and thrust into the lives of Chinese youkai, Kagome runs into a fortune teller that offers to read her pup's future. Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha begin the task of retaking what belonged to them all along, only to find out they have a lot more work to do than either expected. _

Special thanks to Kagome357, llebreknit, Jegar Sahaduta, sayuri-girl, Dragoness Fohama, mangadreams, Mia, TheMikoShivae, yoyo person, BluesDaughter, BlazingMidnightRain, shadowblade-tara, no life king, Britt-sempai, TAJE, Cookie Defender, ArizonaBay, flirtymiyu, supersilee06, juusan'ya, elvenarcher516, Kibi.s2, blueishadow, LadySafire, Amadoni, kittyb78, and AngelWingsbaka!


	19. Aphotic

* * *

**Exhilaration**  
_By Miss Kagura  
_Chapter Nineteen — Aphotic

* * *

"The last time that I made this journey, I was still young," Abi remarked as she looked over the edge of Kagome's flying silver leaf.

The Sea of Japan glittered in the afternoon sun as they passed over it. Every now and then, she would catch the scent of hydrangea, salt, and plum trees that told her the home she grew up in was getting closer and closer. The newborn in her arms seemed somehow aware that he was getting farther away from his father, and had become more restless as more distance was put between them.

"I can't stand this. I wish we could go home to them," Kagome complained.

Rin nodded in agreement. "Sesshoumaru-sama has left me behind before, but he's never sent me so far away."

"Don't worry, Rin. Everything is going to be okay. He's sending us away so we're safe," Kagome reassured Rin.

Rin just nodded and continued watching the sea. "I'm sorry, Kagome-sama."

"For what?" Kagome asked.

"For causing you so many problems," she mumbled at the sea.

Kagome put a hand on Rin's back and started to rub it. "I'm happy you're back, Rin. When you were gone—"

"Dead," Rin corrected.

"He was so sad without you," Kagome said.

Kagome watched as a fake smile beamed at her with pretend happiness and fictional contentment. "I'm glad to be back," she said with a tone that exposed the lie she kept telling herself. "How much further do we have to travel?"

"Not very far. We'll be there by nightfall," Abi said.

A few more hours past, and when land came into sight, Kagome swooped down toward a group of huge buildings built inside of a wall near the ocean. They came to a stop in front of a huge metal gate, where guards pointed weapons at them.

Abi gave Kagome the baby, and then argued with the guards in Japanese, which surprised Kagome, since they both had heavy Chinese accents. "I smell Shen. Let me talk to him," she hissed in frustration after the seventh round of 'You aren't allowed in,' a game that got very old very fast.

The first guard laughed. "First you want in, and now you want to talk to the general? You're making some big demands, Girl."

She used her hands to cover Katsu's ears and screamed, "SHEN!"

There was the sound of metal clattering as someone leapt over the wall a few seconds later, and landed in a clumsy pile in front of them. He grabbed Abi and hugged her tightly. "Well, it looks like my only sister does remember where home is."

"Gah, let me go. I just had a baby. My entire body hurts," she complained. She turned to Kagome and said, "I actually came here because I need help," she took the baby back from Kagome. "This is my son, Katsu. He needs protection. He's the heir to Japan's West."

Shen face became grave and he nodded. "I'll stay close."

Another guard came and poked Kagome in the back with something sharp, and Kagome instinctively retaliated ducking and flipping the guard over onto the ground. By the time he realized he'd been thrown down, he was staring up at Kagome's glowing bow.

Shen arched his brows and said, "Play nice with my sister's guests. The priestess looks dangerous."

A few minutes later, he escorted them across the grounds to a suite of room's in the main palace. Green and gold silk billowed around the windows when Kagome pushed them open to look at the sea. "Look, Rin, isn't it beautiful?"

Rin stood next to her and watch the rising moon shimmer on the dark water. Something about it was so drawn to it, and she wasn't sure why. She just stood there, watching it. It was dark, beautiful, and endless. It seemed strangely familiar to her. "Very pretty," she whispered.

Katsu and Abi were asleep within minutes, finally able to rest after what was an intense ordeal for any mother and new baby. Birth, and then a long trip had seriously exhausted them both. Kagome quickly joined them on the ridiculously large bed, which had clearly been made for a demon with a very large true form.

Kagome rubbed her belly as she lay in the bed, watching Katsu sleep next to his mother. She and her pup would be doing that soon, in just a few months. She had a million worries any mother would have when pregnant, and they just stacked on top of everything else.

The one growing inside of her womb was created from her love for Sesshoumaru, a fact she just couldn't mentally get around. It always amazed her when she realized that a whole new person had been conceived from their love. The pup would be so tiny and so dependent on them for everything from food and safety to warmth and affection. It made her nervous, it made her excited, and all she could do until it was time for the pup to be born was rub the tiny bump he the pup had made in her stomach.

Would she be a good mother? She wanted to be, and she had mothered Shippou somewhat, but a newborn is so different from a young youkai who can already pretty much take care of himself. Kagome had always been 'blessed' with strong maternal instincts, but now that she was actually expecting a baby, she was scared. What if she messed up the kid permanently somehow?

Kagome was fairly sure that everything she had witnessed between Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha for the first three years she knew them was the product of poor pup-rearing. They obviously had way too many 'Daddy' issues with Touga, and those issues had a profound impact on both of the taiyoukai. She still had no idea exactly what started their feud, but it didn't seem to matter anymore.

She felt a surge of pride when she thought of how well Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha were getting along. Once all the emotional baggage and heart ache had been dealt with, they were able to really start acting like brothers. They were similar in so many ways. Both were stubborn, heroic, stubborn, rude, strong, stubborn, arrogant, and did she mention stubborn? Oddly enough, they seemed to complete each other in a very peculiar way. Their personalities complemented each other just enough so that Inuyasha's hasty clumsiness was offset by Sesshoumaru's precision and ease. Likewise, Sesshoumaru's chilly disposition and Inuyasha's fiery temper kept each other in check.

Their foes were clearly going to regret upsetting the sons of the Great Dog Demon, since they had individually proven themselves greater than their father. Together…she didn't want to think about the destruction that would be wrought on Hoshi and the others. She couldn't imagine that there were enough youkai in all of Japan to keep them engaged in a coup for months.

Her body finally pulled her into a state of sleep, which was becoming increasingly frequent as the pregnancy continued. Kagome couldn't remember the last time she didn't feel tired, and was thankful for the rest. She still missed Sesshoumaru and felt like a part of her had been taken away by the distance. There were so many things she wanted, and nearly half of them were things that people watched in pornography in her time. Her sex drive was frustratingly out of control, but the one time they had tried to fuck in a few weeks lead to the awkward, unsatisfying night they had before she left.

When they were asleep, Rin tested them, padding quietly around the room. Neither of the women so much as moved, so she quietly went into the next room and turned on a lamp, looking for something to do. She was afraid to sleep, and finding activities that would keep her from doing so was crucial. There were things in her nightmares that she knew would frighten anyone.

She opened an armoire, and her eyes fell immediately to the plum sparkle of a silk dress. It was short like Kagome's; Abi hated having her legs covered. There were pink and purple jewels sewn into it in a random pattern. She shook the dust off it, and shed her kimono. It was the most beautiful dress she had ever seen. Where was the harm in wearing it for just a minute?

Rin looked in the mirror and pulled the ribbon in her hair, and the lopsided ponytail disappeared into the rest of her hair. She felt…like someone else. She was a brave princess who didn't have to be afraid of the darkness. A cool wind drew her eyes to the dark water again, and she slipped out the window into a distorted, dark, surreal world that she chose to see through a personality that wasn't hers.

The darkness couldn't hurt her. Not again, never again.

She had slipped into the skin of someone else that had never been dragged into the black abyss, someone who didn't know to be afraid of it.

Her foot came to a rest on the edge of the cliff the palace was built on, and she looked down at the water as it crashed against the rock. If she fell, her body would break on the sharp rocks that jutted out of the water. It would be like when she was hit by the Wind Scar; she had a permanent image of her own intestines tattooed to the back of her eyes.

She heard a familiar, horrifying sound, the resonance of air as it detonated. The echo of the Wind Scar tore apart the illusion she had woven and all she could hear was the roar as it rushed toward her. A memory played in slow motion, and she could have sworn she saw the jagged, hot white lines cut across the water, calling her.

It happened again and she covered her ears with her hands, trying to separate reality from hallucination. She wasn't even remotely aware she was falling until she looked up at the moon. That was real; it was the only real thing she could always rely on. Even separated from the one who bore its mark, she knew it would pull her from the aphotic trance she had been trapped in and bring her back to the light.

Rin was jerked to life by a splash of cold water and realized she was cradled in someone else's arms. She opened her eyes, expecting to see the glimmer of gold eyes, but the eyes that looked back into hers were blue. Black slits dilated impossibly wide, until only a little blue sparkled at the edges, and then narrowed again.

"A girl?" a male voice questioned.

Rin managed to look away from his eyes to the rest of his face. Shiny black hair, big blue cat eyes, and face of a teenager stared back at her. "You're not the one who saves me."

"Do you require rescue that often?" he rudely asked.

Rin frowned. "What's your name?"

He jumped from the rock he was standing on to another, then another, and finally to the beach that stretched out at the end of the cliff. "None of your business," he said, dropping her in the sand. "What's yours?"

"I'll tell you my name if you tell me yours," Rin offered.

"Nevermind. I don't really care what your name is," he said.

Rin's eyes glanced over the boy's bare chest, and saw the boots and shirt that were discarded on the shore. The way the muscles moved with her eyes mesmerized her, and made her feel very, very odd. Warm. "What are you doing out here in the middle of the night?"

Her toe found a groove in the sand and she looked down to the fading impression of three lines. The Wind Scar. She closed her eyes, and focused on the cold water that splashed against her ankles. It was gone when she opened her eyes again.

"I was practicing my Wind Scar until a girl fell out of the sky," he remarked.

Rin's knees gave out and she fell into the sand. "You…you were doing it. I wasn't imagining it?"

He arched his brows and unsheathed his long claws. They glowed for a moment, and then slashed at something Rin knew she would never see. The Wind Scar traveled over the water, and then dissipated. "You've seen that before?"

Rin didn't answer, but picked up a fistful of sand and threw it in the boy's eyes. She ran as fast as she could from him, because he made her see it again, because she knew what he could do to her. She didn't even know his name and she knew he could destroy her body with a flick of his wrist.

He chased her, and her mind went back several years. She was running through the woods, listening to the growls and barks of hungry wolves. There was no Sesshoumaru to run to this time, and she didn't want to give them the chase they wanted. One foot abruptly dug into the sand in retaliation and she crashed into the sand, face-first. Rin waited for the pain, for the heat on her back and neck as her throat was torn out.

She felt a warm hand on her back, but no teeth. "Girl, I'm not going to hurt you."

Rin rolled over, and let him help her up by the hand. She noticed the strange, foreign heat returned where their hands met, and traveled down her spine. He picked her up to take her back to wherever she had come from, and it intensified, pushing everything to the back of her mind. She wrapped her legs around him when he was knocked off balance by the sudden change in her scent.

He pushed her off, and glared down at her. "How old are you?"

"Twelve," she answered.

He was only three years older than her, but it was enough for him to understand what was happening. He had seen men act like this when they got hurt in battle, and went on to throw themselves at other people just to forget what had hurt them so much. "You're too pretty to be someone's whore," he said.

The boy picked her back up, leapt quickly, and traced her scent back to the window she had escaped from.

She changed back into her clothes and finally went to bed, but found her thoughts kept drifting back to the boy whose name she didn't even know. I was an entirely new feeling, and she welcomed it because it was something other than pain and fear.

The next morning, Kagome was walking down the hall, returning from bathing when an old human opened a door. "I've been waiting," he said.

Kagome looked up at the man's glazed over eyes; he was blind. "Excuse me, are you talking to me?" she asked.

"There's no one else," he stubbornly said.

She looked down each side of the hall, and she was, in fact, the only person around. "Why have you been waiting for me?"

"Come in," he ordered.

The dimly lit room was decorated nearly completely in black, and the man led her to a table with a single candle burning. "I am a fortune teller. Would you like to know your fortune?" he asked.

Kagome shook her head. "I like the future to be a surprise."

"The future isn't a surprise though, not to you…" he said as the smoke from the candle thickened and the room began to smell like car exhaust, something only Kagome would have recognized.

"Your child will be an incarnation of someone that you know. I will reveal his identity if you so please," he said.

Did she want to know? Nothing had been more painful than knowing people compared her to Kikyou. Knowledge, in that case, had nearly damned her to forever walk in the dead miko's shadow. Were they alike? Sometimes. They both loved Inuyasha, and she shared some of her mannerisms and dreams with Kikyou. What if knowing who donated her baby's soul tainted her opinion?

Kagome knew of a lot of people who had died, and most were wicked. "Is it someone evil?" she asked.

"This person killed many innocent people," the fortune teller said.

Kagome put a hand over her belly and stumbled backwards toward the door. "My baby isn't a killer," she said.

* * *

**Across the Sea…**

Kouga postured himself carefully as the taiyoukai waited for his answer. "Let me get this straight, you want an alliance with the wolves?"

"Correct," Hoshi said.

"Against who?" Kouga asked.

"Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru," Hoshi answered.

Kouga growled, "No fucking way. Are you crazy?"

Narrow amber eyes disdainfully stared through Kouga. "You leave me no choice. Don't ask for mercy when—"

"No, I mean it! Are you fucking crazy? Is there something wrong with you?" Kouga continued.

Hoshi frowned and made Kouga an offer. "You can have the miko when it's all said and done. I've heard you fancy her. She is quite lovely, after all. Big blue eyes, long black hair, big breasts. You know if her life doesn't tie us to an alliance, we'll have no reason to keep her alive."

Kouga laughed at Hoshi. The entire affair was ridiculous from beginning to end. He had learned not to touch things that belong to Inuyasha, and Sesshoumaru was supposedly just as vicious about his possessions. When Kagome had visited the demon slayer and monk, he picked up her scent and caught up with her, only to find out she had become almost as dangerous as the dogs she lived with. She was happy, mated, and pregnant, and he had no intention of interfering with her life.

"No thanks. I kinda like breathing," Kouga said.

Hoshi left the wolf den and set out to secure more alliances. It had been an unnerving journey, since one or both of the brothers had recently made an impression on almost everyone. Humans loved Inuyasha for the most part, and every village headman's house had been exorcised by the monk that traveled with Inuyasha. Little did any of them know that Miroku's little 'free-food-and-beds' scam had spread unimaginable amounts of goodwill for Inuyasha among humans everywhere.

He had gone to the panther youkai, who had sworn vengeance against Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru, but after a scuffle a year before, Sesshoumaru resurrected their leaders from the dead. They denied him an alliance and pretty much declared they'd back up Sesshoumaru if he wanted.

Then, he went to the mountain cats, only to find that Inuyasha had saved them all from a mantis youkai.

Hoshi tried to hunt down someone to grow rare poisonous herbs for him, and ended up at Jinenji's house, listening to what a good heart the lethal miko had.

Everywhere Hoshi went he ran into people who had been touched somehow by Inuyasha or Sesshoumaru. Most people had been helped. Some had been freed from spells, many had been rescued, others freed from slavery, while most of them simply benefited from the death of a dangerous youkai.

Youkai respected their power and the manner in which it was put to use. They weren't reckless, power-thirsty tyrants, and only made outstanding displays of power in defense of the things they protected. Humans respected the fact that Inuyasha had buried hundreds of people that had been killed and left to rot by Naraku while Sesshoumaru severely reduced the bandit population and kept feudal lords out of his land.

A few miles away, at the edge of the border, Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru were washing blood off their swords in a river that marked the entrance to the West. The Inu assigned to patrol the border had been given the opportunity to change his mind about who the 'real' leader of the land was, and chose poorly, calling reinforcements to aid him.

All the dog taiyoukai were very strong, so being outnumbered really took their advantages away, forcing them back-to-back as they were surrounded. Taiyoukai fights, especially among well-trained fighters, were a sight to behold. To a human, they were a jumbled mix of blurs caused by inhumanly fast movement, the clang of swords, the heat from youki, explosions, and a few insults.

"I've never been in a fight like that before. Most of my fights have been with less powerful youkai. Since I changed into a full-blooded youkai, I haven't really had anything to fight against. Tessaiga in my hands now is…" he said, pausing to find the right word.

"Catastrophic," Sesshoumaru offered.

Inuyasha transformed the blade under the surface of the water, and watched the ripples distort the sword's image. Before, when he would do it, he felt a slight connection to his blade. Now, Tessaiga crackled with energy, acting almost is if it was an extension of his body and will. It asked for his youki, and felt the sword convert his own power into a life-taking, ground-shaking force beyond description.

The ground was littered with Kongosoha shards, broken armor, and body parts strewn about in a sick, random manner. "Should we bury them?" Inuyasha asked.

"They'll be found soon. If the patrol is found like this, it might discourage others from continuing in Hoshi's rebellion," Sesshoumaru said.

"The sooner this is over, the sooner the girls can come back and I can see my son. I'm going to miss things I should be there for. Right now, he's probably doing something I want to see," Inuyasha said.

His older brother sighed. "Then let's get back to work. I will make Hoshi eat his own liver if I miss the birth of my first child because of him."

"Do you think Kagome will be okay? Myouga said my mother had a lot of problems when she was carrying me," Inuyasha asked.

Sesshoumaru closed his eyes. "Not helping."

"Right, sorry," Inuyasha replied.

"I think that we need allies," Sesshoumaru said.

Inuyasha looked up and asked, "Like who? I don't know anybody."

* * *

**Please Review!**

_**Chapter Twenty — Unexpected**__  
All his life, Inuyasha thought the world hated him. For three years, he and his pack had roamed Japan, doing little things here and there. Those little things didn't seem half as small to all the people he had helped. He asked for allies, and realized people felt honored to be his ally, to be on his side.  
_

Special thanks SessyLover180, Britt-sempai, kzb637, elvenarcher516, llebreknit, DarkAngel512, Cookie Defender, EroticAnime, musicallady1, XoXoInuyashaoXoX, kittyb78, supersillee06, ArizonaBay, TheMikoShivae, LadySafire, juusan'ya, sayuri-girl, dedanaan, Sessho-kun'sgirl466, mangadreams, Kagome357, trinity3000, Arodwen, and flirtymiyu!

Musicallady1 – Kagome can't go back to the Modern Era because the well was destroyed earlier in the story. As per the rest of your questions, I can't answer them. It would ruin the story! I have a plot twist coming!


	20. Unexpected

* * *

**Exhilaration**  
_By Miss Kagura_  
Chapter Twenty — Unexpected

* * *

"Sure."

"What? Stop joking around with me, you mangy piece of shit!" Inuyasha shouted at Kouga, who had just agreed to enter into an alliance with them.

Kouga looked from one brother to another, deciding that Sesshoumaru had to be the 'reasonable' one of the two, since it was quite possibly impossible to be as impossibly unreasonable as Inuyasha. That thought made the wolf's brain cramp, but the point stood. "I think that you should be a little nicer to new allies until they become used to the fact that you're a dick," he suggested.

"Both of you! Watch your language around our son," Ayame growled from the back of the den.

Kouga gritted his teeth, thinking he was about to get jostled by Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru, but instead he was met with sympathetic eyes. "Not a word," he growled.

"You have a pup?" Inuyasha asked.

Ayame bounced the red-haired boy on one hip and brought him to the cave entrance. "Say 'Hi!'" she said.

The boy shyly hid his face in his mother's shoulder, and Inuyasha leaned down, as if hypnotized. "Hi!" he gently cooed. The pup turned and peeked at Inuyasha with one eye, and then shyly waved at him.

Sesshoumaru rammed his elbow into Inuyasha's ribs. "Back to the issue of war…"

"I've got a son, he's just a few days old," Inuyasha offhandedly remarked.

Kouga took the boy from Ayame. "What the hel---ck heck are you doing out here then? Ayame would have cut off my balls if I went off to fight when this guy was a newborn." He rubbed his head after it was slapped. "What? 'Balls' is not a bad word. Kids play with balls!"

"Baaaaalls," the boy said.

The female growled some threat and took the boy back, leaving the three men to reflect on the obvious changes they had undergone. Inuyasha, who was previously the most detached, awkward creature on the face of the planet, had shown a certain amount of glee over the presence of a pup. Kouga had been punished by his mate, just as Sesshoumaru or Inuyasha would have been by their mates if they misbehaved in front of a baby.

Even Sesshoumaru felt silly for a few moments. There stood three warriors, prideful fighters who never let anyone insult their pride or body…except their mates. Two years before, any meeting between the three would have been insults and testosterone, steel and stupidity, but now, they were mellowed out by sex, strong women, and fatherhood.

"I…that asshole Hoshi tried to kill my son. I had to send them away to be safe," Inuyasha nearly whined.

Kouga sympathized for once. It was something any father would understand, and on that level, he and Inuyasha saw eye-to-eye. Hoshi tried to kill a pup. "Like I said before you started screaming, you've got the wolves behind you. Just tell me what you need."

They decided to branch out from Kouga's den on the northwest coast. The first large human city they came to presented a real challenge. It was a fortress, and there was a new lord. They were brought into the main hall to see him and one Akitoki Houjou threw his arms up in the air. "Inuyasha! It's been quite some time. How are you?"

"Keh, good. Are you still clumsy?" he shot back.

"We've come seeking an alliance," Sesshoumaru interrupted, wondering if Inuyasha had any idea what the word 'tact' meant.

"For Inuyasha? My family owes him quite a debt. He's helped us several times. I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't come to my rescue," Akitoki said. "The Houjou Family stands behind you fully."

From there, it was a village Sesshoumaru saved from bandits, then to a shrine Inuyasha had saved by killing a monster, and on to a den of bats, where a hanyou named Shiori and several hundred bat youkai had been saved from after several hundred years of oppression.

That night, Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha were sitting alone around a fire when a conversation about their popularity started.

"I thought that would be harder, but everyone seems like they like us." Inuyasha said.

Sesshoumaru arched a brow. "Tell me, something, Inuyasha. Was every village headman's house haunted by evil spirits? Perhaps there is some sort of youkai that is drawn to comfortable beds and good food." he said.

"Miroku did it so we could eat well and he could ogle rich girls," Inuyasha barked.

They ate in silence for awhile, and then settled down to rest.

"You know what the weird thing is? Some of these people I barely remember. These fights didn't mean anything to us," Inuyasha said.

Sesshoumaru nodded. After he became attached to Rin, he disposed of any bandits he came across. It was no big deal, usually about one second of his time per bandit, if that. The real affect of that was becoming apparent; for every bandit he killed he had saved all the people that bandit would have killed. Japan became safer, more stable, and a better place for humans to live.

"You know none of them seemed to care that you were a hanyou," he noted.

Inuyasha nodded, almost in disbelief. The world that had rejected him as a child had accepted him as an adult and he was so busy trying to prove something to everyone that he didn't even realize he had won. He had friends. He had allies. There were people that would go to war for him, and it was for no other reason than they believed in him and trusted him with their very lives.

He had learned a lot about humans over the years, mostly from Kagome. They weren't born prejudiced, and most weren't cruel by nature. Misunderstandings and misinformation were behind quite a lot of the suffering they had come across. When the villagers had been ready to kill Jinenji, for instance, they could have killed Jinenji, Jinenji could have killed them, and either way, the ending would have been bad. Kagome refused to allow it though, and pretty much force-fed everyone the truth.

The villagers thanked Jinenji and helped him rebuilt a hut, and Jinenji had the courage to help them when they were sick. Everyone won. A happy ending for a hanyou, something unheard of even a few years before, was as simple as helping everyone realize that hanyou could be good or evil, just like humans or youkai could.

Kagome had told him a thousand times that uneducated people were naturally more bigoted because truth was simply out of their reach. Given the chance, and the capability to understand that hanyou weren't always bad, most people had chosen to accept him, even look up to him in many cases.

Sesshoumaru found an odd sense of relief as he stumbled across Japan and into the members of Inuyasha's shockingly populous network of willing allies. There was a time when being a hanyou was a death sentence. Either humans or youkai would ensure that hanyou were killed, but things had changed. Inuyasha had changed the way the world behaved toward hanyou and his own hanyou pups would benefit from it.

Inuyasha was passionate and angry and extremely willing to be the champion of those slighted by the world. He had never really been cheated or screwed over the way Inuyasha typically was, so he never felt the compulsion to go help someone for the simple reason that they are helpless. It was admirable, but probably also a sign of mental disease leftover from Inuyasha's turbulent childhood.

"These people are the reason we have to do this. If it were just about power, I think I could just walk away and not care. It takes so little of us to make a big difference though," Inuyasha said.

"Almost nothing," Sesshoumaru said in agreement.

Being a lord was about power, right?

Sesshoumaru sank deep into thought, trying to find some way to work what he had learned that day to his advantage. As long as he had been Sesshoumaru, Lord of the West, he hadn't made many allies, and allies made up a huge portion of a leader's total power. As far as he was concerned, alliances were about posturing and paperwork and selfish intentions.

It felt strange to have people volunteer friendship and support for the simple fact that they had faith in him and his brother. It had nothing to do with paperwork, or self-serving interests. The allies they were picking up were genuine and completely committed.

People wanted to throw their support behind a leader who wouldn't send their sons to die in border disputes. They wanted lords who weren't interested in taking over Japan, or engaging in the war that was exhausting and crippling the whole country. Most people wanted the very things Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha wanted — a safe place to live and raise families, food, clean water, and peace.

Mateship and fatherhood was molding them into the type of leader everyone wanted to live under.

* * *

**China**

The first night, she fell.

The second night, she jumped.

The third night, he was waiting for her on the other side of the windowsill.

Rin laughed when the boy caught her and brought her down to the beach. "Are you going to tell me your name?" she asked.

"No," he laughed.

She laughed and sat down on a rock, watching as he took out two pipes and handed her one.

"I'm being shipped off to the war front in the east tomorrow, so I figured I'd get you something before I go, since I'll probably end up dead like everyone else," he said as he lit her pipe with a shaking hand.

Rin puffed it and coughed. "What is this?"

"This will make all of our troubles go away, just for a night. I am afraid of dying, and you're afraid of living. Opium doesn't care either way," he explained.

Rin frowned as she puffed again, waiting for the magic he promised. They talked about nothing as they slowly climbed an invisible ladder into drug-induced euphoria. Her tongue became loose, as did his, and as promised, the world became something else as the poison in her blood convinced her everything was okay. When she got cold, she didn't have sense enough to not to crawl into his lap like Sesshoumaru allowed her to do.

He didn't have sense enough to push her off, and some part of his mind made a dishonorable argument in favor of encouraging her. "My best friend, I grew up with him. We went on our first tour of duty together," he said.

Rin turned so she was facing him, her legs straddling his waist. He was so beautiful, even more than Sesshoumaru to her eyes.

"We were fighting, side-by-side, and this bastard turtle youkai fired a cannonball through his stomach. At first, I thought he had been missed because he was still standing." His voice cracked, and Rin felt fingers squeeze her thighs as he continued, "Then I saw he had this huge hole in his gut, and the cannonball had crushed his insides onto the top of my foot. I see it every time I close my eyes," he confessed.

"Dying isn't scary," Rin whispered onto his lips.

He swallowed hard and tried to convince his body not to react to the fact that there was a pretty girl sitting on his lap. His want to die honorably weighed more heavily than his want to not die a virgin. She was too cute, too sweet, and too good for what he wanted to do to her.

"What happened to you?" he asked.

"I died. I'm still dead. I keep waiting to feel alive, but…Life doesn't seem to find me as easily as Death," she said.

The heat, the foreign need knotting her stomach as she sat in the boy's lap had returned. She ran her fingers through his black hair, and looked into his bright blue cat eyes. Something instinctive told her what it was that her body asked for, and an image of the bandits that killed her family came to mind, rutting her tiny little body until she couldn't walk anymore. It would be different if this boy did it. He could make her feel alive. She didn't even care if he hurt her; she just wanted to feel the vibrant clarity and emotion that living people felt. Rin wanted to feel the heat she felt when he touched her to consume her whole and burn away the darkness.

"You can make me feel alive again," Rin said.

"This would dishonor us both," he said.

Rin pushed her body closer to his, unintentionally grinding against the arousal he was trying to tame. "Please!"

He didn't know if it was the way her hair swung, or the desperate tone of her voice, or the motion of her body against his cock that broke his self-control. She repeated the action and he groaned, allowing his smooth fingertips to wander over her young body. "In the water. It'll hide the scent for the most part. If people knew about this, they'd say bad things about you."

Rin walked to the water, watching the waves move in and out. She pulled the green obi and let it float to the ground like a ribbon lost in the wind. She wasn't sure why she wasn't embarrassed, although any adult would have easily linked the lowered inhibitions with the drugs that clouded her sensibilities. They only kept her from what she needed. She lay down in the sand and let the cool water washed over her.

He knelt in between her knees. Rin closed her eyes tightly when she got a glimpse of his cock, and clenched her fists in the sand as she felt pressure against the peculiar slippery fluid she had found on herself the other times she had seen him. He was fumbling around clumsily, and then thrust in completely, clamping his hand over her mouth when she inhaled deeply to scream.

"I'm sorry!" he apologized.

There was no foreplay, and no experience between the two of them. They were foolish, untried kids who were trying to find some way to escape from the crippling fear in the safety of their odd attraction.

The darker part of Rin's mind was wiser for her experiences with Sesshoumaru and realized that being enslaved to what her soul craved wasn't that bad at all. She waited years for Sesshoumaru to admit he loved her like a daughter, and during those years, everyone said she was a fool for believing in him.

Discussions and lessons she learned over the years had proven that her instincts never lead her astray. When she peeked around a tree to a wounded taiyoukai, her instincts said not to be afraid. She loved Sesshoumaru then, because he brought out that intuition and helped her find herself after the tragedy of losing her family. She went hungry for him, she was beaten for him, and then, when her life was on the line, she ran to him.

Rin had been overcome by darkness then, when she was much younger. She couldn't speak, she couldn't think, and the things she dreamt about would frighten a grown man. She felt like she had been beaten down, and everyone in the village had written her off as a lost cause, including herself. Her soul felt the same way now. Dark, cold, and crippled. This time, she knew what she needed — that strangely primal stirring of her nature, the revival of the girl that she knew she was.

Rin wasn't a child anymore. She knew any number of boys could make her feel the heat that was spreading through her core, down her back, and into her stomach. Their attention could distract her, making her more lost and more frightened when it was gone and she was alone again. Only this boy could touch her soul, and she knew it just as she had _known_ that Sesshoumaru could before.

She didn't want to disappoint her father, her Sesshoumaru-sama, but she knew he understood her. They shared in many a dark conversation since she had come back. He told her how she had saved his soul as much as he had hers when they met. He told her of how Tenseiga awoke for the first time because of her. He told her he too felt the connection then, even if he didn't understand if for a very long time.

They fell into an unsteady rhythm, caused by a boy who was terrified of hurting the girl or finishing before she 'came,' although he wasn't sure he would know. He really didn't know much about what it meant other than what he had heard from other men. Something was going to happen, and he couldn't finish until it did.

He touched her with hands that had never touched a female in that manner before, and made accidental discoveries. The places he liked to touch she liked to be touched. When his middle finger found the raised bud in between her folds, she arched her back and moaned into his ear.

Perhaps the instinctual tug on her heart was only one half of the bond? She wondered if the boy also felt what she did. Rin was sure he did, since it was clear from his behavior that he was neither used to being close or touching others.

He thrust into her, burning the image of her body, her voice, her silky skin, and her hot sheathe into his memory. She was amazing, and he was sure she would haunt his dreams for years, maybe forever. Thick brown hair, big brown eyes, and her desperate cries nearly drove him to embarrassment.

Rin felt like she was slowly waking up as he drew extreme pleasure from her body. Death never felt so hot, or so amazing. She felt like her life force was coiling up in her belly, and when it was set free, she'd spring to life. It felt like it took an eternity, until he started to rub her clit. Her body demanded more and she clawed into his back. "Harder…please…" she begged.

At the blistering center of her soul, under layers of lust and need, there was something unbelievably pure and untamed about her connection to his boy. And for that, she would not regret this choice, no matter how foolish it seemed to everyone else.

His hips jarred into her with desperate fervor and Rin's world came crashing down as the tension was released. She couldn't see, or think, and her body clenched down on the boy's erection, causing him to cry out as if he were in pain and reach his own peak. One set of his claws scratched the back of one of her shoulders, but she hardly noticed.

He collapsed in the sand on top of her, panting. "If I live, I swear to every god I can't remember the name of right now that I'll find you," he promised.

Rin smiled gently, listening to their hearts pounding. She looked into his eyes and knew he meant it. It was a promise that there would be more life, more pleasure, more reasons to feel as good as she did right then. It was a reason to live that didn't involve making other people feel better because they loved her.

She gave him her kimono and he gave her his silk shirt. He carefully took her to the windowsill, and told her to take a long bath before she was caught. "Goodbye, Love," he said, kissing her on the cheek.

"Don't forget me," Rin whispered.

She watched him leapt back down to the sand and whispered something else. One word. "Rin." She knew he heard her because he turned his head and smiled at her, and then continued on his sandy path away from her.

She turned to get her things ready for a bath, but ran right into someone else. "Abi," she said, identifying the person who had just caught her.

Abi stared at her with wide eyes. Her nostrils flared out in recognition and she covered Rin's mouth and dragged her down the hall to the empty bathing room. She locked the door and pushed Rin into the large hot public bath. "Rin, have you lost your mind?"

"Are you going to tell Sesshoumaru-sama?" she timidly asked.

"That his little Rin smokes opium and had sex with a taiyoukai prince? No, I think he'd string me up by my own intestines and that doesn't sound all that appealing right now," Abi sputtered.

"He's a prince? What's his name?" Rin asked.

When one runs into a twelve-year-old girl who smells of semen, desire, and opium, there are things that can make the situation worse, like the words 'What's his name?'

Abi sat down at the edge of the bath and stared down at Rin. "His name is Sun. I met him the day after we got here. He's my nephew and the heir to all of this."

Rin blinked a few times and ducked her head under the water, swimming along the bottom of the bath. She surfaced right in front of Abi and said, "He's a prince? Is that why he can do the Wind Scar? It looks like a giant cat scratch, so that means Tessaiga stole it from a cat youkai, right?"

"The Wind Scar was taken from one of my brothers," Abi said.

"Can you do it?" Rin asked.

Abi shook her head. "Cat youkai are one of the species of youkai where the males are much stronger than the females. I can't even smell it. That boy that had his hands all over you will probably be as strong as Sesshoumaru when he grows up. Stop trying to change the subject."

"Do you think I did a stupid thing?" Rin asked.

The cat snorted. Kids wouldn't be kids if they didn't do stupid things, would they?

"That depends on why you did it. Most of the reasons kids have sex are stupid," Abi said.

Rin sighed, trying to find a way to explain what she had felt. "I can't explain it. I don't think anyone would understand."

"Of course not," Abi sarcastically spat.

Her hair moved out of the way and a fresh wound on the back of Rin's shoulder caught Abi's attention.

Rin had been marked.

Young people were generally stupid. Everyone knew this, as everyone was either young and stupid, or old and wise after being young and stupid. This was exceptional though, beyond the realm of normal idiocy. Rin had been marked by someone she had known three days. "I'll be back later. Don't get out of the water for at least another hour. You reek of him," she said.

She stalked carefully across the grounds to the scent that had saturated Rin.

Sun was sitting on his bed, hugging his legs when Abi opened the window and crawled in.

"You idiot! You marked Rin! What the hell is wrong with you?" Abi hissed.

He buried his head in his hand. "I don't know what happened. It was like instinct or something. Grandfather is sending me to the eastern front tomorrow, I'll probably die anyway."

"You're going to die, that's for sure," Abi said.

"If I live through the rest of the war, what happens?" Sun asked.

"Of all the humans in the world to do that to, you picked the only one who was adopted by someone who can and will kill you," Abi said.

Sun rubbed his forehead and said, "I ruined my life."

Abi slapped him on the cheek. "You aren't allowed to say things like that. Rin is fragile and you just made a lot of her decisions in life for her. Don't tell anyone about this, not even your father. I was told you had some semblance of common sense!"

"Not around her. She's amazing," he mumbled. "We could keep it a secret, right?"

"You know of Sesshoumaru, the Inu Taiyoukai?" Abi asked.

"Mean, possessive, cruel, cold, reportedly most powerful youkai in the entire world," he said, recalling something he'd been taught in school.

"Also, Rin's adopted father," Abi said.

Sun stomach somehow turned even harder, nearly making him vomit. "He's going to kill me. What am I going to do?"

But _why_ were kids stupid?

Was it hormonal? Abi made a mental note to ask Kagome if the scientists of her time had discovered what made teenagers act like idiots. Kagome was a prime example of a stupid teenager. She traveled from her safe, good world to the dangerous Sengoku Jidai for a pair of twitching dog ears, and then had an affair with Sesshoumaru.

"I'll convince your father send you to Japan as part of the alliance I negotiated with your grandfather. You'll be working right under Sesshoumaru. You have to make him like you enough not to kill you when he finds out what you did," Abi said.

"So, befriend him? How hard can it be?" Sun asked.

"Trying to make friends with Sesshoumaru is like hugging a porcupine," Abi warned. "Then, while you're there, you're going to relinquish your claim to the throne. You know what will happen to Rin if other people find out their heir mated a human," Abi said.

Maybe kids were stupid because everyone has some amount of stupidity sealed up in them and it leaks out at the same rate as hormones?

It was dawn by the time everything was set in place, and Abi returned to her room. She picked up the baby and bounced him softly. "You're not ever going to do something like this to your mother, right? You're a prince too, and if you want to mate with a human, that's your choice, but please, please learn her name first."

Katsu yawned and squeezed his mother's finger, and then demanded food.

Kagome sat up and yawned. "He woke up while you were gone, but all he needed was a change," she said.

Kagome furrowed her brows in confusion when Abi muttered something about 'name first, mate later,' and smiled when she saw Rin sleeping on the other side of the bed. "Look at Rin. She hasn't slept that peacefully since she came back from being dead."

Rin sighed in contentment and rolled over, away from Kagome's voice.

Abi didn't tell Kagome what had taken place, or even hint that she knew anything about Rin had changed at all. The three claw marks on her back — the mark of the Wind Scar, of her mate — had probably saved her from slipping into more dangerous forms of escapism. Everyone knew a girl that craved physical attention to dull the pain of something tragic, or the one that became lost in a world of opium and booze.

As foolish and reckless as what they had done was, it gave Rin something she had failed to find in all of them, even in Sesshoumaru. At some point, being raped as a child, watching her family massacred, and dying three times washed away whatever childhood she had left. Lots of humans her age were married, and many even had children, so it wasn't completely unheard of to have someone her age interested in sex, which Abi knew from once being her age many years before.

The door barely made a sound as Kagome walked out and down the hall to the fortune teller. She had spent the last two days making a list of all the people she knew that had taken numerous innocent lives. She told herself it didn't matter, that a person wouldn't be evil because they were in another life, but she had done so many of the things that Kikyou did.

What if her baby was Onigumo's reincarnation? Or Ryuukossei? Or one of the Shichinintai?

She entered the black room and sat across from the fortune teller. "Is my pup going to be a killer?"

"A killer of what? Innocents? Youkai? Humans?" he asked.

"Innocent people," Kagome said.

She held her breath, and gritted her teeth together, waiting for the answer. All the evil people she knew, except Naraku, theoretically had mothers. They came into the world somehow, and she didn't doubt that at least that one person loved them. Her mother had told her that mothers love their kids no matter what they do.

The fortune teller held his open hands out, and gestured for Kagome to press her hands against his. "A truly evil person…will never reincarnate."

Kagome saw a flash of light and a silver-haired boy with blue eyes and pointed dog ears. She knew the face though, and she knew the metallic song of his weapon.

She put a hand on her stomach and gasped.

"Kohaku."

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**Please Review!**

_**Chapter Twenty-One — Instincts**__  
Distance makes all of them confront instincts long buried under learned behavior. Is instinct something that makes a person truer to themselves? Or does it simply negate reason? A tale of a battle won by instinct to follow! _

_**Author's Note:**__  
I am well aware that the issue of age and sex is a serious issue with this chapter. In context, this is the Feudal Era, and most girls were engaged, married, or had kids around 11-16. Rin is clearly more mature than the average person her age, and in the case of Sesshoumaru, she has already proven that she willingly obeys the calls of her heart, no matter how strange they seem. She was a tiny little girl and he had never spoke a kind word to her when she unapologetically took a beating from the villagers because she had taken care of him. I apologize if this offended anyone. I can understand the issue being cause for concern if Rin was with someone much older, or incapable of consenting, but at least within the context of this story, she wasn't coerced or too immature to make such a decision._

_The physical act of having sex is, in the best of instances, a reflection of emotional consummation. That level of emotional intimacy can be more dangerous and blissful than physical intimacy. A woman's soul is just as delicate as her body, in my opinion, and to be capable of trusting someone else with both means the woman is responsible enough to make that decision._

_People make decisions that other people don't understand all the time. When Rin blindly followed Sesshoumaru, I think readers neglected the emotional risks of her doing so because they all wanted it to work well. Rin is one who follows her instincts instantly and completely and I consider it one of her strong points._

Special thanks to Silverinomiko, blueishadow, ArizoneBay, Kibi.s2, kagome past and present, darklove, sayuri-girl, Kagome357, elvenarcher516, LadySafire, Arodwen, aimdiscord, TheMikoShivae, Britt-sempai, SessyLover180, flirtymiyu, Amadoni, juusan'ya, llebreknit, sesshyandkags4ever, Dominik Journot, and kittyb78!


	21. Impression

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**Exhilaration**  
_By Miss Kagura_  
Chapter Twenty-One — Impression

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Sesshoumaru clawed up the scroll the boy carried and stood on the dock, staring at the one that carried it. His eyes narrowed in suspicion, which was only fueled by the way Sun withered under his scrutiny. He was no fool; Abi sent the boy over for 'training,' which Sesshoumaru could see right through. The whole situation smelled rotten, since he knew quite well Abi knew how to handle and train male youkai. There was some hidden reason she had shipped this boy to work closely under him and he was well aware, even if he didn't know what that reason was.

"Are you here because you're in danger?" he asked.

"N-No," Sun replied.

Amber slits stared holes through the nervous boy. "You are anxious. Did Abi send you here because you did something stupid?"

Sun's eyes widened. "More or less," he replied, praying his answer would suffice the taiyoukai. His eyes fell to Bakusaiga, and Sun could feel the lethal aura that swirled at Sesshoumaru's side. That would be his fate, he knew, if he didn't find some way to prove to Sesshoumaru that he was worthy of his little Rin.

"Do I want to know what is so bad it warrants being shipped out of the country?" he asked.

"I'm very sure you don't," Sun stammered.

Sun felt panic rise up in him. What if Sesshoumaru asked? He was sure Sesshoumaru could probably smell a lie, and dishonesty would only make the taiyoukai more suspicious of him. The anxiety subsided when Sesshoumaru turned and walked away, and Sun slowly followed him.

Both were completely unaware of the fact that their respective trains of thought were headed to the same train station to meet a lovely girl who they were both worried about. Thinking about Rin was, of course, better than conversing with strangers, so they traveled in comfortable silence until Sun's train derailed and the smell of arousal rose in the air. He tried his best to temper the desire because it felt so wrong to feel that way in front of her father.

Sesshoumaru turned, and all rational thought seized.

"You're here because you did something stupid…with a girl," Sesshoumaru said, making the obvious connection between the scent in the air and the nervous boy. His curiosity kicked in at this point, since there was any number of women that a prince should most definitely not be keeping company with. He himself had been a spoiled prince in his youth and made his fair share of idiotic decisions. Or maybe it wasn't a woman at all? The scandal of a homosexual relationship could be as fiery as anything. "What exactly did you do?"

'_Your daughter._' Sun thought. "I marked a human," he said, shielding himself from the taiyoukai's wrath in a blanket of ambiguity.

Sesshoumaru arched his brows, and then shrugged. "Is China sympathetic to such relations?"

"No," he replied.

Sun's grandfather had agreed to this arrangement for one reason, and that was to show him how to be 'great and terrible' like the legendary Inu Taiyoukai. Listening to the old patriarch growl on about how mighty and worthy of fear Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha were really did nothing to soothe the boy's nerves. Sun had the capability to become the strongest member of his family, but nobody had any faith in him because of his emotional weakness.

He hung his head as he remembered dropping to his knees to hold his dead best friend in the middle of a battle.

He wondered what it would take to prove to Sesshoumaru he was worthy of Rin. He would have to prove that weakness wasn't there, and that he could kill without hesitation. Mercy was a sign of weakness. Compassion was a sign of weakness. Affection was the worst, so he would pretend to be mighty so that the taiyoukai would understand he was capable of protecting Rin.

Sun squared his shoulders, stood up straight, and walked with an arrogant gait behind Sesshoumaru.

After brief introductions, Sesshoumaru sent Kouga and Sun in opposite directions to patrol the area around their camp. There wasn't any danger, which both he and Inuyasha were well aware of, but there's only so much of Kouga a person can take at once.

"There's something weird about that kid," Inuyasha commented.

Sesshoumaru sighed. "He seems like an imbecile."

He tried to ignore the strange tug in his stomach. It was bordering on painful, and he suspected it was due to his mate's pregnancy. Hanyou pregnancies were rough, and many women didn't make it through the delivery without having serious problems at some point. She was far enough along that the pup was quite capable of kicking her very hard in organs that weren't meant to be used to take hard blows.

"She'll be okay," Inuyasha said. He wasn't sure if Sesshoumaru was thinking about his depressed daughter or pregnant mate, but either way the comment applied.

Sesshoumaru was afraid of the potential effects of the distance. He was worried to death about Kagome, and with each day that passed, he became increasingly apprehensive that something bad would happen, or she'd be in a lot of pain, and he wouldn't be there. They had already spent too much time apart since their first coupling. The fact that their relationship hadn't crumbled from the separation, stress, and varying levels of anguish really showed how much strength both of them had.

He knew Inuyasha had been just as nervous, but Inuyasha was not quite as good as handling the anxiety. In the days before Katsu was born, Inuyasha had spent the majority of his time pacing, worrying, thinking, and hunting, as if he felt like he was doing a bad job if he was doing anything other than getting the world (and himself) ready for the pup. Then, when Abi had finally gone into labor, he watched as Inuyasha had what could best be described as an orgasm of fretfulness. His worry seemed to peak, and then he became calm just before all his fears came crashing down on him.

There was a fear that they shared that made even Sesshoumaru somewhat afraid of parenting. They had both come to understand that their father had done the best he could, and that he loved them. He had gone so far as to give his life for his sons, but that dedication and desire to protect did not make him a good father. Touga nearly wrecked his son's lives in the name of teaching them. That is what neither Sesshoumaru nor Inuyasha could stop fearing.

Love alone didn't make someone a good parent, nor did it seem that a person could be a good parent without it.

Sesshoumaru already knew he had failed Rin on a vast number of levels when it came to being her father. The first and most obvious offenses nearly made him feel ashamed. He made her get her own food, and even if he always made sure they were near a good source of food when he did it, he knew a good father would have taken better care of her by bringing her food.

He also got failing marks for emotional detachment, rudeness, and leaving her for long periods of time without explaining why.

The fact that she had died three times since he had known her made him feel like a complete failure as a protector. Her depression he blamed on himself, since he was the one who failed to prevent her death, and he was unable to aid her as she struggled against the darkness in her soul. There was a time when he had been the one who could fix her, and the fact he couldn't anymore made him strongly consider that perhaps Rin trusted him less. Sesshoumaru was well aware that Rin was searching for something she hadn't found in him, and for being incapable of even identifying what it was that he lacked, he felt awful.

He and Inuyasha leapt to their feet as a sound reached them. It was the roar of the Wind Scar, which made no sense to either of them, since Tessaiga rested quietly at Inuyasha's side.

In the forest not far away, Sun panted in nervous torment. The bear youkai stared at him with wide, pleading eyes as he glanced at the crevice left by the Wind Scar attack he had only narrowly missed. The cat held glowing claws up and ignored his conscience. He couldn't hesitate. That was a sign of weakness!

Sun hissed. He would prove he wasn't weak or compassionate or merciful. He was strong, and he would prove that to Sesshoumaru.

Ryokon, the guardian of the forest, crumbled to the ground, sobbing and begging for mercy. "Please! I mean no one any harm!"

"No mercy!" Sun growled. His hand wouldn't obey as he tried to strike the youkai down for moving in on the camp. If he didn't, Sesshoumaru would think he was an incompetent protector.

Ryokon's pleas fell on ears that wished they were deaf to his voice. Sun closed his eyes and tried to tune him out. He was a taiyoukai; he couldn't hesitate, he couldn't be weak, and he could not show mercy to this lower creature that had come so close to their camp.

His shaking claw stilled as Inuyasha's hand wrapped around his forearm and brought it down. "He's harmless. Let him go," Inuyasha said.

Sun let his arms hang limp at his side as Inuyasha helped the sobbing youkai up off his knees.

"C'mon, Big Guy. Get up, you big baby," Inuyasha said to Ryokon.

The younger youkai watched in confusion. This was not behavior he had ever seen from another taiyoukai, or any other powerful youkai. "You would show him clemency?" Sun asked.

"Well, yeah. Why not?" Inuyasha replied.

"Mercy is a sign of weakness," Sun recited as his eyes slowly met Sesshoumaru's.

The older taiyoukai tilted his head in a combination of disappointment and curiosity. "Mercy is product of a compassionate heart. Is that why you strike with a hesitant hand?"

"No! I am not weak! I feel no compassion for my enemies," Sun argued.

"Then you are a fool," Sesshoumaru replied as he turned and walked away. "Go back to camp and try not to kill anything."

Sun chewed into his bottom lip and ran back, totally confused by the behavior he'd seen and the reaction he got.

He heard the clumsy thumping of Ryokon's frightened sprint, and turned as the youkai fell at his feet. "Young master, do you think you could show as much kindness to the forest?"

"I don't understand," Sun said.

Ryokon pointed to the trees he had upturned and destroyed with his Wind Scar. "Those trees did not spend so many years growing because they longed to be knocked down by your hand." He nervously bowed and then added, "…my Lord."

Sun looked up to Sesshoumaru, and realized he had no idea how to please him. So, since he didn't believe he could disappoint Sesshoumaru any more than he already had, he responded the way he would if he and Ryokon were alone. "Of course," he said.

This, at least, gained no comment from anyone, so Sun slumped down and went back to camp.

"You're right, he is kinda dumb," Inuyasha said.

Sesshoumaru's nose turned up. "That scent!"

Naraku's vile scent tainted the wind just slightly, and they tore after it. Both silently chanted the truth they knew; Naraku was dead. He couldn't come back. That era of their lives was over. There was a red streak and a white streak moving between trees too fast for most youkai eyes.

"Byakuya!" Sesshoumaru said as he spotted a paper crane.

It swooped down onto the ground, and Byakuya stared at them strangely for a moment. He made no move to fight, no move to expose his intentions. He stared down Bakusaiga and Tessaiga, and then looked up to Sesshoumaru. "Long time, no see," Byakuya said.

"What do you want?" Inuyasha shouted.

There was a flash of light, a sharp _bang_, and the complete deadening of the senses as Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru were sucked into one of Byakuya's illusory worlds. There was nothing to see, nothing to smell, and nothing to hear. Sesshoumaru opened his eyes to bland, indescribably white nothingness. He wasn't aware that there was anyone else there other than the unexplainable awareness of his little brother's person.

It wasn't a sense. He didn't see it, or hear it, or feel it. He just knew where Inuyasha was, so he closed his eyes. They weren't serving him at all anyway. Sesshoumaru wasn't even sure he was correct about his suspicion, until he backed up closer to where he though Inuyasha should have been and felt Tenseiga reverberate, protesting proximity to its counterpart, the So'unga.

Likewise, Inuyasha was in an equally blank world, totally incapable of sensing anything other than a feeling similar to the one they he had while fighting his way out of Hell. He felt the So'unga stir, and slowly unsheathed it. He hated using it, and had only handled it a few times since retrieving it from Hell.

Like Tenseiga, So'unga was otherworldly, thus the two swords could wound each other with no small amount of collateral damage. With that in mind, Inuyasha touched his sword, and was unsurprised to hear it cling against metal he could not see. Sesshoumaru was left-handed, and Inuyasha was right, so if they stood back-to-back and stood in the same stance — Sesshoumaru's 'Tenseiga is telling me to do something and I don't know what pose — their swords grated against each other.

Sesshoumaru was amazed; not very many people ever knew what it was like to have such profound knowledge of someone else's behavior. Neither would have openly admitted it, but very few things helped them understand each other as well as being enemies did. There were things about foes that people learned that a friend might not even notice. The way Sesshoumaru stands when his sword confuses him, the frustrated skittering slide of Inuyasha's hand just before he recoils to strike with his sword, and the way Sesshoumaru always turned right from fighting without his left arm were things a friend would never know.

A right turn, the nervous slide of Inuyasha's blade…

Byabuka watched as his illusion started to unravel, torn apart from some sort of friction that shouldn't have existed. Even he knew better than to give them something to attack. Did that mean they were attacking each other?

"Hurry!" Byakuya growled.

Hoshi leapt backwards, only narrowly missing the searing youki thrown his way. He landed in front of the peculiar white mist that separated Byakuya's illusion from the rest of the world. He growled at Sun, who had been drawn to the completely unfamiliar smell of Naraku. "Do it again and you'll kill them both."

"You'll kill them if I don't!" he said.

"Well, what are you gonna do? Make up your mind, Kid," Byakuya asked.

The boy felt his stomach turn as he tried to figure out what the correct course of action was. This was, at the very least, an obvious and nearly successful assassination attempt. He wondered if killing the illusionist would leave the Inu trapped in the illusion, or if they could actually be hurt while trapped in the delusion.

It was feline instinct to kill the easiest target, and Sun gave into it, staking his faith in the two taiyoukai fighting their way out of his magic. His claws punctured and ripped through flesh, perfectly sweeping Byakuya's neck from between his head and the rest of his body. His segmented corpse fell to the ground.

Inside of the mist, where Inuyasha was 'battling' his brother's invisible sword, the brothers had made no progress in escaping, so Inuyasha did what he and Sesshoumaru always did. They increased the measures of stubborn and powerful and forced the laws of nature to bend to their obstinate will.

He stepped back, and Sesshoumaru saw two purples dragons appear out of nowhere. He couldn't see the sword, or Inuyasha, but the twin dragons told him well enough about what was about to happen.

"Dragon Twister!" Inuyasha yelled to warn all of the people who couldn't hear him anyway.

Sesshoumaru used Tenseiga to defend himself as the Dragon Twisted sucked up the white mist, and destroyed the illusion Byakuya had trapped them in. It then went on to tear a path of complete destruction through the forest throwing trees and rocks and dirt in all directions.

When the youki tornado finally calmed down and the dust started to settle, Sesshoumaru twitched his nose. "Hoshi was here," he said.

"He ran off. I think you scared him," Sun sputtered from the top of a tree.

"He's not the only one we scared. You can come down now," Inuyasha said.

"I'm comfortable up here," he nervously replied as he added what he had just seen to the increasingly lengthy list of reasons Sesshoumaru frightened him. He didn't know where the Dragon Twister had come from, but it was one of the scariest things he had ever seen.

Inuyasha pointed out a chunk of Byakuya's neck. "Apparently, you can kill when it's necessary."

"Of course I can!" Sun defensively said.

Sesshoumaru sighed. He was relieved that no one else was present to witness what would have been a self-made joke. It's not every day that dog youkai chase cat youkai into tree tops, after all. "What made kept you from returning to camp?"

"That _thing_ smelled disgusting. It smelled like a spider demon rolled in a mountain of other corpses," Sun said as he made his way down with none of the ease one would expect from a cat youkai.

"And that is the condensed version of the story," Sesshoumaru replied.

Hoshi's blood was on the air, wounded either by close proximity to the Dragon Twister or scrapping with Sun. He couldn't hide himself quite so easily, giving them the perfect opportunity. "Go back to camp, Sun. We will give chase," he said.

Camp was…interesting. It was like nothing Sun had ever seen. A hanyou offered to tend to minor cuts he had gotten, youkai and humans chattered cordially as if that was just the way the world was. Sun had fought in a youkai war before, and it had been so different. Night time around the campfire was when whores and sake were slung around carelessly, not where people settled down and talked.

Not only were Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha surprisingly decent, their allies were as well. Just from sitting around and listening, Sun could hear that many of their most ardent friends had been enemies at some point.

It was contrary to everything he had been taught about the behavior of taiyoukai. He was supposed to be cold, merciless, arrogant, and perfect. He wasn't supposed to mingle with lesser creatures. Because of his hesitant hand, Sun had been ridiculed and criticized, but that was the first and only thing that seemed to have impressed Sesshoumaru.

Sun smacked his head against a tree, realizing Sesshoumaru probably would have liked him better if he hadn't been trying so hard to prove he was something he definitely wasn't.

"I am such an idiot," he groaned.

* * *

**China**

Kagome looked out the window at the moon, wishing the one bearing its mark wasn't so far away. She was having one of those nights where the frustration was building so she felt overwhelmed. Her body was worn out, exhausted to the point she was afraid she might pass out where it not for the sharp pains that shot through her tummy every now and then.

All she wanted was to sleep, but it was starting to seem impossible. She whimpered in agonized frustration, "Is it supposed to be like this?"

"I didn't really pay attention to Izayoi, but I know she whined all the time and made ridiculous demands of Touga. 'It hurts,' 'calm my baby down,' all that," Abi replied.

"Touga could calm Inuyasha down before he was born?" Kagome asked.

"It's an Inu thing," Abi said.

Rin said, "Maybe Katsu could help. You know, like if you put five puppies in a huge box they all end up in a tiny little pile sleeping together."

Kagome reached for the adorable ball of fluff curled up on the bed, and picked Katsu up. As adorable as he was in the form of a baby, his true form was so much cuter to her. The pup had transformed after coughing a few times, and had spent the entire day sleeping and clumsily crawling around with closed eyes. He made the tiniest whine as he woke up, upset to be removed from the warm spot where he had been sleeping. Katsu sniffed Kagome's belly, and curled up next to her.

"What if I accidentally roll on him?" Kagome asked. "I might smother him."

"He is a baby taiyoukai. His lungs are already stronger now than yours will ever be," Abi pointed out.

She smirked and relaxed as the movement inside of her stilled. "It's amazing that they can have such strong senses. I bet if we let them have lots of time to bond they can get along when they grow up."

"Preferably without the centuries of attacking each other. I'm getting old to deal with the fervent feuding of young pups," Abi added.

"I only had to deal with it for a few years and I've had enough!" Kagome said.

Sleep quickly claimed her exhausted body, and she slipped into a world free from the physical and emotional stresses brought by pregnancy. It was no easy task, no glorified state of glamour. Her body ached, she had gas a lot, and the effect of the hormones were exacerbated by preexisting fears of motherhood. Parenting was scary, and the closer she got to the birth of her child, the most frightened she became.

Rin watched Kagome curled up with Katsu, taking the moment to appreciate how unbelievably close their little family was. Their bonds had been tried by more than fire and worse than death, and the closeness extended to more than just the cuples. Kagome and Inuyasha had practically grown up together, chasing after Naraku. Abi and Sesshoumaru had a comfortable but ultimately bizarre bond that nearly bordered on maternal at times. Everyone wanted to be a part of a family like this — one that was unbreakable by the stress of life.

"Abi, would you help me?" Rin asked.

Abi stretched and nodded. "Sure. What do you need?"

"I just want to talk, I think," Rin said.

They went into the next room and Rin sat on the floor. Abi did the same and glanced sideways. "I'm not really one for heartfelt talks. That's Kagome's area of specialty," Abi said. "I can teach you to kill things."

Rin let her kimono fall down to her waist, and turned so her shoulder faced the cat. The mark on her back was a deep shade of red, as if it was fresh. "My mark has felt warm all day. Tingly. What does that mean?" she asked.

"It means your mate has been thinking about you. A lot. More than is probably healthy," Abi replied.

"I want this to work. I want to be happy, and I want to be with him," Rin said.

Abi slumped down. Wasn't this type of conversation Kagome's problem? At the very least, she would have liked to be able to shove the painfully awkward moment into Sesshoumaru's lap so that he could suffer through it instead of her. "Rin, there is a really good reason I spent almost two hundred years living in the forest _alone_," she finally replied.

"What reason?" she asked.

"Damned if I know," Abi replied. "I have no answers for you. Ask Kagome. She's much better with feelings and the like."

Rin gritted her teeth. "No! I don't want Kagome. You taught everyone to do something. You taught Sesshoumaru and Kagome to fight, and you taught Inuyasha how to be really, really be in love. I want you to teach me everything you know about cat youkai and relationships and…and…sex. You have much, much more experience than Kagome."

And so, like every other girl that had lived before Rin, she reached that point where she wanted to shed the sunny kimono and whimsical hair style to unveil the young woman underneath. The questions that had puzzled her as a child had resolved themselves to reveal a completely new set of mysteries. At the same time, so many of those questions only made her doubt herself.

Rin had wandered through a labyrinth of darkness and doubt since she had been brought back from the dead. She had wondered if she would find a place in the world. Now, she was afraid she would lose that place because she still wore the remnants of her childhood both inside and out. She wanted Sun more than she had wanted anything in her life, and with the primal connection they shared came a fear that she would fail him.

Rin finally understood how to escape from the labyrinth, from the darkness she had been lost in. She had been trying to go back to the beginning, to the way she was, but there was no going back. With no plan for the future, she had been wandering around, feeling lost and frightened, but now she knew what she wanted. She wanted that light that had penetrated her very soul.

She was sure there was wisdom about men that she should know from her mother, but Rin had been so young when her mother died that knowledge hadn't been passed on. The only other females Rin was close to didn't really seem like mother figures. Kagome, in truth, wasn't even a decade older than Rin and didn't seem to have all the answers when it came to anything, a sign she too was going through a growth phase. Plus, she had all of her own stress to deal with.

"The first time I saw Sesshoumaru, I knew we were connected. It's the same way with Sun," Rin said.

"Do you have any idea how much work it takes to love a taiyoukai?" Abi asked.

"I stayed with Sesshoumaru, even when he didn't bother to look at me, and would leave me alone with Jaken for days without explanation. Everyone said I was crazy, that I was a stupid little girl for following him without question. I would do that for Sun, but I already know he won't ignore me," Rin said.

"Obviously," Abi replied.

"So you'll help me? I want to know _everything_ about cat youkai and whatever else will help," Rin eagerly said.

Abi sighed and nodded, thankful she had a child. That fact would hopefully dissuade Sesshoumaru from killing her when he inevitably found out about everything.

* * *

**Please review!**

_**Chapter Twenty-Two — Reasons Why  
**Sesshoumaru finds himself giving advice to Sun about the human girl he marked, totally unaware that it's Rin that they're talking about._

Special thanks to gettogoth, musicallady1, Chetari, TheMikoShivae, no life king, Cookie Defender, toni, LadySafire, TAJE, Gren de la Cruz, juusan'ya, Noacat, sayuri-girl, flirymiyu, ladyofGods, lady555, elvenarcher516, Tajia, BurningRoses123, Jegar Sahaduta, Sugar0o, Britt-sempai, Kagome357, Arodwen, kittyb78, trinity3000, llebreknit, Amadoni, and j.j. Ryan.

Author's Note: My reviews are so awesome. I have a lot of mixed responses to the last chapter, and I'd like to thank you all for taking to time to chime in on such a controversial issue. I hope you enjoy this chappie.


	22. Reasons Why

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* * *

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**Exhilaration**  
_By Miss Kagura_  
Chapter Twenty-Two —Reasons Why

* * *

When the first snowflakes started to fall three months later, Sesshoumaru held his hand out and watched them melt in his hand. Watching as the West was slowly covered in a blanket of snow was like watching sand pouring through an hourglass. He was running out of time, and his pup was just weeks from being ready for birth. Sometimes, he knew, that happened early, or late, or right on time.

It wasn't just the birth he wanted to be there for, either. He wanted to be there for all the things Inuyasha was missing. Katsu was several months old and hadn't seen his father since his second day. With each day that went by, Inuyasha got more and more pissed off at the whole mess. He had taken to using both Tessaiga and So'unga at once, which was a sight to behold, except for the person on the receiving end of his aggression.

"I want this shit done," Inuyasha growled.

"You think I don't?" Sesshoumaru bit back. "I actually have a plan."

"Really?" Sun asked.

Sesshoumaru had a much higher opinion of Sun, despite the rocky first few days they spent together. The boy was quite clever and relatively skilled for his age, but he hated battles and violence, something Sesshoumaru had _never_ seen in another taiyoukai, ever. Sun's natural aversion to violence had actually come quite in handy in the handling the few non-allies they had come across as they slowly swept over the West.

After the tentative plans had been hammered out, and nearly everyone else had gone to sleep, Sesshoumaru heard the rhythmic scratching of a piece of bamboo over paper. He sat up and watched as the boy furiously wrote, with no small amount of conviction in his eyes.

"What are you doing?" Sesshoumaru asked.

Sun briefly looked up and smiled. "Letter of Relinquishment."

"Why would you give up your claim to your grandfather's empire?" he asked.

"My mate is human. She wouldn't ever be safe in China. If we ever had children, the only place in the world they'd be safe is here in Japan," Sun replied.

Sesshoumaru arched his brows, wondering what kind of woman could so ensnare a youkai prince. Sun was often so distracted other youkai could sneak up on him, and everyone knew only a girl could make a boy act like that. "Is she worth all this? Giving up your inheritance, and your home?"

Sun shifted nervously under the attention the taiyoukai was paying this particular topic. "She is. I'm sure you'd agree."

Sun had been taught to be a certain way, but time spent with the Inu and their bizarre allies had stripped off the expectations he and his own family put on him. He didn't have to be cold, or belligerent, or a warmonger. Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha certainly weren't, and he had so much respect for them.

In some ways, it was the best thing that could have happened to Sun. He had been in danger of losing himself to the expectations of others when Rin came along, and she loved him just the way he was. Because of Rin, he had been sent to Japan to be with Sesshoumaru, who proved that a man could have compassion and still be strong.

"It's worth it," Sesshoumaru said as he noticed the slight shake of the boy's hand.

Sun put the bamboo down and looked up at Sesshoumaru. "I love her," he declared. "I didn't know if I did, because I didn't know her very well. But I know now. I love her so much that I would do anything and run away anywhere just to be with her."

Sesshoumaru nodded in understanding. Whoever the girl was, she had Sun wrapped around her little finger. She helped Sun realize he didn't really have the heart to be what the leader of a warring youkai empire needed. There were moments the boy was rude and arrogant, but underneath that very shallow shell, he was actually a little soft-spoken and sweet.

"Have any pups?" Sesshoumaru lazily asked.

Sun blanched. "I hope not."

Sesshoumaru found his response amusing, but it reminded him of an event he had coming up. He sighed. "I will. Soon."

Sun stared down for a moment. "When it's all said and done, I wish to bring my mate here to live."

"I believe I could make good use of you," Sesshoumaru replied.

"Doing what?" Sun asked.

"Commerce. My family will be in control in Japan's West and your family controls China's East. It only makes sense to use this to our mutual advantage. We have a fortress on the coast that could be built into a city. The Inu fortress is inaccessible to most so it would be prudent to move the capital of the West anyway," Sesshoumaru explained. "It would allow you to provide a rather comfortable life for this girl you seem to care so much for."

Sun smiled and rolled up the scroll. He felt really guilty knowing that Sesshoumaru had gone out of his way to find some way to help him. Sesshoumaru didn't even know it was Rin that he had marked. What Sesshoumaru was offering was a position that would allow him to live a safe, happy life with Rin.

He had been allowed to grow with the Inu, free to be shy and clumsy without recourse other than the occasional joke. As time went by, he felt more and more guilty about the secret he kept from the taiyoukai.

Sun knew he could wait until everyone was reunited, when Rin would protect him from Sesshoumaru's wrath, but he was a man, not a boy. Depending on her protection only proved the he wasn't mature enough to handle the consequences of his actions. He also knew it wasn't fair to put Rin in that position.

He bit down on his lip. "Sesshoumaru-sama, there's something I need to tell you."

Sesshoumaru looked up and waited for Sun to speak, and while his lips did move, no sound came out. "Yes?"

Sun shook his head, silently cursing himself. He had tried to do it a dozen times, and each time, he found that his body would freeze up and disobey his orders, as if it was taking control to avoid physical assault. "Nothing," he said.

The taiyoukai stood up, and took a few steps in the other direction.

"No, wait!" Sun said.

He stopped for a moment, and then started walking again when Sun didn't say anything.

Sun dropped off the letter at the docks, trusting it to a trader who was headed back to China, and then met up with Inuyasha for their plan.

Meanwhile, Sesshoumaru and Kouga had split up and were skimming over the central area of the Western Domain for traces of Hoshi's scent, although since they had retaken all but a small portion of the West back with little bloodshed, there wasn't much room for Hoshi to hide.

Sesshoumaru combed over the area, looking forward to the fact that there might be a resolution to the fighting. It had been over a year since Hoshi had ambushed and nearly killed him. He had killed Naraku, nearly killed his brother, nearly killed himself, gotten Kagome pregnant twice, and had grown quite a lot while secluded in the forest. Now, it was time to get back to work, back to his family, and back to his life.

He crinkled his nose at dusk kicked up by a tornado, and waited for Kouga to come to a stop in front of him.

"I got it. This way," Kouga said.

The panther siblings moved in behind them under careful direction, given the simple order that no one was to escape. The dilapidated outpost Hoshi's scent was coming from was just a place for soldiers to sleep during some war that had been long-forgotten. Sesshoumaru had correctly assumed his cousin avoided the actual Inu Fortress because he likely had very little support.

It wasn't a building that would be missed.

"BAKUSAIGA!" he shouted as he leapt through the air, reducing the structure to splinters.

A streak of white leapt into the trees. "Son of a bitch! How did you get here?"

Sesshoumaru gracefully leapt from limb to limb. "You do realize I now hold the loyalty and allegiance of every part of the West except this small area."

Hoshi narrowed his eyes. "I don't believe you."

"I don't care," he said.

Metal crashed against metal and Hoshi was thrown against a tree. He retaliated by drawing his legs up and kicking hard with both feet against Sesshoumaru's breastplate, which cracked. The force knocked the wind out of Sesshoumaru, and Hoshi punched him in the face. "Tell me something, Cousin. Does your human bitch take it like dog?"

A feral growl escaped from Sesshoumaru, whose sword was blocked by Hoshi's. He kept pressure on Bakusaiga, knowing that with the exception of the other swords he and his brother wielded, any other weapon would be incapable of withstanding ongoing assault. Hoshi's sword, unnamed, irrelevant, and weak, would simply shatter under the assault of Bakusaiga.

To Toutousai's credit, the old youkai had an intense affect on the world, but did very little to involve himself in it. He controlled the future by arming the ones he thought were capable of handling themselves both morally and on the battlefield. A person with a selfish heart, for instance, could never use Tenseiga or Tessaiga. The quest to mature a sword would always force some sort of personal growth as well, or some revelation about the one who wielded the blade.

"Hiding behind your sword? Typical," Hoshi snarled.

"Hiding behind your big mouth? I suppose you have nothing else to rely on," Sesshoumaru growled back.

There was an explosion in their peripheral, evidence Hoshi's guards had met Sesshoumaru's allies. "No one is loyal to you. The Inu turn on you the first chance they get. That is why I now hold all but a very small part of my father's land," Sesshoumaru said.

Far above them, in the fortress that sat at the center of the West, Inuyasha and Sun snuck around carefully. Inuyasha had only been to the fortress once, and that was when Sesshoumaru pulled him out of Hell. "There are a lot of youkai here," Inuyasha commented.

"This was a crappy idea," Sun nervously muttered.

"I know you're here to be polite and diplomatic, but that's not really my style," Inuyasha laughed.

Sun crossed his arms, well aware of Inuyasha's methods. Inuyasha thought the Wind Scar was a proper answer to any argument.

They walked past a building with a moon carving in front of it. "This must be it," Inuyasha said as they climbed up the steps and opened the door. Since his father built the western empire, there was a council of Inu that controlled everything and had, possibly by lack of other viable options or misinformation, supported Hoshi in the first place.

Inuyasha entered the meeting room as his brother had so many times, and his father before that, taking hold of his inheritance. The council hadn't changed much over the years, and most of the ten members had been there since long before Inuyasha was born. Sun and Inuyasha listened to the heated arguments of the enraged council.

"_You said there would be no full-blooded heir!"_

"_We know what happened when Touga took a human lover!"_

"_It doesn't matter what we think of Hoshi, he hasn't even kept the human feudal lords out of the West!"_

The youngest son of the Inu No Taisho considered delicately approaching the council to see if they'd be interested in changing their minds about which leader they supported, but it seemed ridiculous. All he wanted was to see his son and his mate again, and he didn't feel like sparing any of the council members discomfort after what he and Sesshoumaru had gone through.

His father had always been diplomatic, if not gentle with those that helped run his empire. Sesshoumaru was courteous, although a bit snippy at times.

Inuyasha leapt into the middle of the room and drew the So'unga. "Hey, shut the fuck up!" Two purple dragons snaked out of the sword's blade and wrapped around it, waiting for Inuyasha to unleash the Dragon Twister.

"So much for diplomacy," Sun mumbled.

"I'm sick and tired of this shit. I'm not here to negotiate and I don't give a fuck about what any of you think," Inuyasha said.

"I am the head of the council," a man said as he stood. "The council made a sound decision based on many factors, including the fact that Sesshoumaru's offspring won't be youkai. They'll be hanyou."

"No shit. Is there something wrong with being a hanyou?" Inuyasha asked.

"No, I suppose not," the man nervously said.

"Here's how I see it — and in case there's any confusion, my opinion matters a hell of a lot more while I hold this sword — you all decided to make Hoshi the new leader, and he lost almost all the land to us. We could finish what we started and take everything over by force, and kick you out, but frankly, we're sick and tired of this bullshit and want it to be over," Inuyasha barked. "You put your support back where it belongs, and we end this."

Sun shook his head. The concepts of diplomacy, leverage, and manners had all been assaulted during Inuyasha's tirade. The declaration was simple, along with the unspoken threat that Inuyasha issued.

_Do the right thing or I will fucking kill you._

Inuyasha's eyes glimmered, strong and unafraid. "So?"

The members glanced at each other, making curt nods.

None of them had ever seen Inuyasha before, but seeing him for the first time was like watching a ghost. He had the same hair, the same eyes, and the same thick, jagged lines marring the skin over his cheekbones. The same unadulterated passion and conviction burned in his eyes, but he was different. This was the boy that lived most of his life as a hanyou, and still managed to make peace with all of his father's enemies, befriend humans wherever he went, and kill a taiyoukai or two.

"I think you have yourself a deal, Lord Inuyasha," the head of the council said.

_Lord Inuyasha?_

Inuyasha scowled at the title and shrugged it off. "Keh!"

Down below, Sesshoumaru jerked his head and failed to avoid a set of poisoned claws that scratched across one of his cheeks. He growled and swept his hand over the wound with his sleeve to wipe off the excess poison that frothed from the scratches.

It had been awhile since Sesshoumaru had really been pushed in battle, and as Hoshi dodged his youki whips, he was reminded of the great distance between the Inu and the rest of the world in terms of power and capability. His father told him as a child that the dogs made the great dog taiyoukai to guard the earth and provide a way to keep evil in check, but he grew out of believing that as an adult.

"Just like your father. That mortal woman will be your end," Hoshi hissed as he stabbed Sesshoumaru in the shoulder with his sword.

Sesshoumaru slid of the blade, grinding his teeth. "You're a fool, Hoshi."

Bakusaiga sang as it assaulted Hoshi's blade again.

Sesshoumaru's mother told him once that it took a compassionate heart to wield a powerful weapon properly. Tessaiga would only awaken to protect someone else, Tenseiga responded only to the deep movement of his soul, and So'unga could only be handled by someone both strong and capable of resisting the silent whispers of power it gave. Bakusaiga, possibly the most powerful weapon in existence, required both a compassionate and might heart before it would even acknowledge it had an owner.

"You couldn't have done anything without your brother," Hoshi hissed.

That much was true. Sesshoumaru knew it, Hoshi knew it, and Sesshoumaru was sure Inuyasha probably knew it as well. Inuyasha had been a weakness for Sesshoumaru since he had been born. Time and time again, their foes turned them against each other, especially Naraku. Even when they made a blood pact and decided to reconcile, it seemed impossible at times. There was so much they had to get past, and there had been times they both doubted if it was really possible that they could ever be brothers.

When Inuyasha died to give Rin life, Sesshoumaru could finally forgive him.

When he pulled Inuyasha out of Hell, Sesshoumaru was able to forgive himself.

There was a moment they shared, panting in exhaustion, that Sesshoumaru knew he would never forget. It was completely clear in his mind, from the smell of the jyaki to the purity of their gaze. Never in his life would he ever feel quite as victorious as he did right then. Not once had he or Inuyasha spoke of it, but every time their eyes met, there was intensity to it.

In battle, they were unstoppable. They had been dangerous when they still hated each other and would give Naraku breaks to punch each other, but when the two actually fought as brothers should, they dominated fights.

Sesshoumaru's sword locked against Hoshi's. "How tragic it must be to be you," he muttered.

Bakusaiga glowed as Hoshi's ears picked up on the slight sound of fissures forming on his blade. "Why is that?" he asked, leaping backward.

"You are the person who has to die so that I can have what I want!" he growled.

Sesshoumaru swung Bakusaiga as hard as his arm would allow, and Hoshi tried to block it. Bakusaiga stopped briefly, just long enough to shatter the inferior blade. Sesshoumaru drove it through his heart, and then withdrew his sword.

He waited for his cousin to finish choking and breathing, feeling a certain amount of pity for him. To desire for power can be such a driving force, pushing a person on and on, offering no fulfillment. The more power a person gets, the more they think they need. It hadn't been that long that he had been a part of that destructive cycle. Sesshoumaru knew he had been saved from it by Rin and later Kagome, but that if they had not come along, he might have suffered an end like Hoshi.

His father had told him tales about the So'unga, the Sword of Supreme Conquest. For centuries, it possessed those who were determined to become powerful. It had even taken control of Inuyasha at a stage in his life when that selfish desire still controlled his actions. He suspected that Inuyasha was only able to wield the So'unga as a full-fledged youkai because he no longer cared about becoming powerful.

How ironic it was that power was best mastered by those who didn't want it.

Sesshoumaru rejoined his brother at the fortress and wrote a quick letter. He gave it to an eagle youkai, who was told to fly it to China immediately. The letter instructed them to come back to Japan and meet them at the westernmost fortress, making for the shortest trip.

It was the next night, while they waited for the women to return that Sun finally found the bravery to tell Sesshoumaru about exactly who his mate was.

The roof was cold, but the three youkai who waited on it couldn't have cared less. Inuyasha was practically twitching in anticipation. He had been thinking about Katsu nearly non-stop for months. He was sure the pup would have grown, but he wasn't sure how much. Would he even remember his father? Inuyasha had barely had any time with the pup, but he didn't doubt that his heart would still feel like it was on fire when he saw Abi holding Katsu.

"Hey kid, why do you look so nervous? Anxious about seeing your mate after so long?" Inuyasha asked.

Sun's hands gripped the stone ledge that he was sitting on. "Sort of."

Sesshoumaru glanced to the boy, who was sweating like a pig. "I am sure you'll find some way to make it work."

Sesshoumaru had nothing against Sun. Youkai did occasionally accidentally mark in the heat of passion, but once it was done, it was done. There was nothing to do but hope for the best, which didn't require much faith in Sun. He seemed very sweet and dedicated to this girl of his.

"I bet Katsu is at least twice the size he was last time I saw him," Inuyasha thought out loud. "How old are pups when they start to talk?"

Sesshoumaru gave his brother a curious expression. "You expect me to know that for what reason?"

"You act like you know everything," Inuyasha sarcastically replied.

"I don't?" Sesshoumaru asked.

"You don't know when Katsu will start talking," Inuyasha answered.

Sesshoumaru said, "Of course not. I am a fighter, not a fortune teller."

Inuyasha growled and glared at Sesshoumaru, wondering how it was possible that they shared a parent. "You're an idiot."

Sun listened to the banter, and tried to find the humor in it to distract himself from the approaching disaster. He had already made up his mind; he would not hide behind Rin. If he couldn't face the consequences of what he had done, he wasn't man enough to have Rin.

He tried to speak, but his jaws clamped together. His tongue felt fat in his mouth, and refused to form even one simple word.

"Inuyasha, could you leave alone please?" Sun finally managed.

Sesshoumaru nodded at Inuyasha, who went inside. "Is there something on your mind?" he curiously asked.

Sun swallowed hard and stared down at the stone roof, studying the texture of the rock. "I love my mate very much. I'm ready to do whatever it takes to make her happy. I feel connected to her, like if I didn't have her anymore, I'd only be half of a person," he started.

"I believe your mate is the person you should be telling this," Sesshoumaru replied.

"No, you need to know," Sun said.

Sesshoumaru narrowed his eyes. "Why?"

Sun looked up and looked into the intense amber eyes that watched him. His heart was pounding, his hands were sweaty, and he was reasonably sure that he was about to be on the receiving end of Sesshoumaru's wrath. "I want you to understand that I'll do whatever it takes to be a good mate. I'll protect her with my life, and treat her like she deserves, and…someday, if we have a family, I'll protect them. I would die for her," he said. His voice died in his throat as he tried to finish the sentence, and it took all the strength he had to force out the last words.

"Because I love Rin too," Sun said.

Sesshoumaru's eyes widened in shock and he made no attempt to prevent his instinctive response to the news. His left fist impacted Sun's right eye, throwing him off the roof and onto the ground below.

He felt like a complete failure as a father. At a time when Rin needed his attention, he had been forced to send her away. Sesshoumaru's head was filled with images of his desperate little girl seeking attention, but it was eclipsed by what he knew — Sun wasn't a monster. He had already demonstrated he'd give up whatever it took to have his mate, and before he had known his mate was Rin, it had seemed noble and sincere.

His boots made very little sound as he landed in the sand by Sun, who was sitting up on the ground, rubbing a cut at the corner of his eye.

"Rin is very sick. She wasn't in a state suitable for making that decision," he growled.

Sun looked up at him. "She's happy. I can sense it."

Sesshoumaru scowled as he realized that Sun was right. If Rin was still going through the intensely dark emotional episodes constantly, it would have seriously affected Sun as well. He had seen make a miraculous recovery once before, when she first started following him. He had attributed the healing to Tenseiga, but he realized that their connection probably played a much larger role in healing her.

What was it that the boy was capable of giving her that he had failed to provide? Sesshoumaru cringed as he realized Rin had grown up quite a lot, and with that maturation came adult needs. The need to…no, he didn't really want to think about that.

"Were you careful?" Sesshoumaru asked.

Sun blinked a few times, trying to comprehend the question. "Careful?"

His teeth ground together and his fists remained tightly balled to keep them from reaching for Bakusaiga. "To keep her from becoming pregnant."

Sun paled considerably and shook his head. "It was just the one time," he replied.

"Excuses are not a form of contraception," Sesshoumaru growled. He knew only too well that taiyoukai seed and fertile human females was a dangerous combination.

The fact that Rin was in a position that she could have a baby made him feel sick. He didn't care if humans her age were doing such things. He was vehemently opposed to the idea of her growing up, which he already knew. This revelation was just a little too much for him to handle. He had hoped that his 'growing up' would be a gradual process, taking place over several years.

He played back a series of memories of a girl that had grown up right before his eyes.

Who Rin took as her mate should have at least in part been his choice. What had happened in China was completely contrary to the unwritten Father-Daughter code that governed most other relationships of its kind. He was supposed to have some say in the person she chose to be with. That decision, the final authoritative action of fatherhood, had been taken away from him by the choices Rin and Sun made.

Sesshoumaru couldn't hurt Sun without also hurting Rin, and it was far too late to prevent them from becoming mates, so the choice he was given was to approve or not to approve of them. It didn't change anything either way, so his opinion was essentially powerless.

"I realize you're angry, but please don't take it out on Rin when she gets here," Sun said.

For months, Sesshoumaru had watched the lovesick boy go through varying degrees of stress and longing over his human mate. His lip curled into a snarl as he realized the times it was tainted with arousal that he was thinking about doing sexual things with Rin. When Sun was just a boy thinking of his mate, Sesshoumaru had approved of him, and hoped for the best for him.

Because Rin was so young, he hadn't really thought about what he would expect from her future suitors. Clearly, he had known she would grow up and it would eventually happen, he just hadn't given it much consideration. As Sesshoumaru stared holes into Sun's soul with his paternal stare, he tried to convince himself that he was all wrong for Rin. What Rin needed was someone who was considerate, strong enough to protect her, gentle, loving…he rubbed his temple when he realized those things described the bewildered boy.

Many, many moons before, Sesshoumaru's father had told him that females tend to choose men who are similar to their fathers. Since Rin also chose him to be her father, that rule meant that she would choose someone like him. It didn't make sense to downgrade from taiyoukai father to human husband, so it wasn't a huge shock that she had chosen a taiyoukai. He wasn't sure if he shared many traits with Sun other than some of the very obvious ones, but perhaps the thing they had in common that mattered was a serious susceptibility to Rin.

Sesshoumaru sat down in the sand next to Sun and listened to the waves move gently over the sand. This fortress, this beach, and a night like this had been the last time he had seen his father alive. He was losing someone else dear to him, but to a far less tragic fate.

"How did it happen?" he asked.

Sun let out a sigh of relief; Sesshoumaru seemed a little nostalgic and sad as opposed to the enraged, violent expression he held a few minutes before. "The first night, I was practicing my Wind Scar in the middle of the night, right on the other side of this sea. Suddenly, I heard someone scream and looked up to see her falling to her death."

"Rin does that," Sesshoumaru said.

"She nearly gave me a heart attack the second night. She jumped out the window and just expected me to catch her," Sun replied. "The third day I saved myself the trouble and caught her before she had a chance to endanger herself."

By the time Sun finished explaining exactly how he and Rin had ended up mated, save a few bits he left out for everyone's sake, Sesshoumaru nearly pitied him. There was no denying that Rin could get to a person's heart quickly, and it was fairly clear from the way Sun spoke that he thought Rin was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

The parallels of Sun's story and his own first contact with Rin were strangely similar. Rin found both of them, however accidentally, and continued to return even when she was told otherwise. Rin's whimsical actions were eclipsed somewhat by her intense needs, once for a father, and then for a lover. Sesshoumaru knew he had no intention of being her father when they first met, but she made one out of him anyway by taming his heart. He suspected that once she had made her mind up about Sun that he never really had a chance.

Likewise, Rin had seen a father in him when he didn't see it in himself. She had seen the light in Kohaku when Naraku had completely corrupted his soul. Rin had even been the first to point out that Kagura was in love with him. It was possible she looked at Sun and saw exactly what she needed.

Sesshoumaru realized that if Sun could make Rin happy, then the least he could do was be happy for her.

_(Because killing Sun was unfortunately out of the question.)_

* * *

**Please Review!**

**_Chapter Twenty-Three: Reunions_**  
_"Fuck Kagome, you're huge!" Inuyasha said, pointing to her massive belly._

"_Osuwari! Osuwari! Osuwari! Nice to see you too, you stupid jerk!" she replied. _

Author's Note: Three chapters left! Twenty-Five is a nice number. Finishing the story up on some intense Sess/Kag.

Special thanks to sesshyandkags4ever, elvenarcher516, BlazingMidnightRain, TheMikoShivae, inutaisho89, musicallady1, gettogoth, sayuri-girl, juusan'ya, TruGemini, no life king, Kiki.s2, Lil Shadow, dedanaan, trinity3000, Sugar0o, LadySafire, lady555, kagome past and present, Cookie Defender, Kagome357, llebreknot, Arodwen, flirtymiyu, ArizonaBay, and kittyb78!


	23. Reunions

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* * *

**

**Exhilaration**  
_By Miss Kagura_  
Chapter Twenty-Three —Reunions

* * *

Sesshoumaru was completely stunned when he finally saw Kagome again. He helped her out of the flying cherry leaf, unable to take his eyes off her enormous belly. His whole body tingled in anticipation and anxiety as he gently put one hand on her stomach, and used the other to pull her into an admittedly awkward embrace.

"I missed you," Kagome said.

The next thing she heard was the vulgar yell from Inuyasha, which interrupted and ruined the delicate moment she was trying to share with Sesshoumaru.

"Fuck Kagome, you're huge!" Inuyasha said, pointing to her massive belly.

"Osuwari! Osuwari! Osuwari! Nice to see you too, you stupid jerk!" she replied.

Abi walked in front of her mate and frowned. "Don't curse in front of the pup or he'll grow up to be like you."

"Is that a bad thing?" Inuyasha asked as he slowly stood up.

"**YES,"** Kagome and Abi answered in unison.

When he finally got back up, he took the infant from her arms and realized that Katsu had indeed grown quite a lot. He could control his own body better, and his eyes watched everything. "Can he talk yet?" Inuyasha asked.

"He's three months old, Inuyasha," Abi replied.

The baby let out a whimper and buried his head in Inuyasha's shoulder. "The cold wind is upsetting him, I think," Inuyasha said. He took Abi by the hand, and led her inside.

Kagome leaned into Sesshoumaru's chest, and he rumbled in satisfaction.

"Hello, Sesshoumaru-sama, I missed you," Rin politely said. He saw her eyes fix on Sun, and then look away.

Sesshoumaru arched a brow. "I know, Rin."

"Is that why Sun's eye is black?" Rin asked. "I can't believe you hit him!"

"You're lucky he got away with a black eye. Castration was invented by someone's father, you know," Sesshoumaru answered.

Sun's eyes bugged out at the threat, but he smiled shyly. "No worries, Rin. Everything is fine."

Rin confirmed Sesshoumaru's suspicions about her relationship with Sun by literally leaping into his arms and hanging from his neck. She kissed his cheek and laughed when the contact seemingly set his face on fire. "Come on, let's go inside, I have so much to tell you!" Rin grabbed his hands and pulled him backwards, but tripped and fell off the roof.

Sun panicked and barely caught her in time. "You have to stop doing that. It's bad for my heart."

This left Sesshoumaru and Kagome alone for the first time in months. He nuzzled her cheek, and then kissed her hair. "You look exhausted," he said.

She sniffled and squeezed his hand. "I was so worried about you." After a few steps, she winced and moved one of her hands to her back.

"Are you all right?" Sesshoumaru asked.

"My back hurts. Is there a place I can lay down for awhile?" Kagome replied.

He nodded and gently scooped her up, nearly thrown off balance by her body's strange weight distribution. He carried her inside, and laid her carefully at the bed. Kagome rolled on her side so the aching side of her back didn't have any pressure on it and moaned when Sesshoumaru's warm hands rubbed it, gently massaging the muscle. "Does this help?" he asked.

"Mmmhmmm," she replied.

"I'm really relieved we're together now. I was starting to get worried, because I don't think this baby wants to stay in much longer," Kagome said. She smiled at Sesshoumaru, who watched her with protective, yet affectionate eyes.

He untied her kimono, and pushed it aside, revealing her belly, and then put his ear down, searching for the rhythmic thump of the pup's heart, which he located easily. Kagome's whole stomach jerked and he stared at it curiously. "What was that?"

"Puppy gets hiccups," Kagome replied.

"Interesting," Sesshoumaru said. He put his head down and listened to the next hiccup, trying to find the exact source of the sound. From what he could tell, the pup's head was down, the way it needed to be for a safe birth. Kagome had told him it could be very bad or dangerous if the pup wasn't positioned right during birth. With that worry pushed aside, he traced the thin pink pattern near her belly button. "And these?"

Kagome sighed. "Stretch marks, from growing too fast. With my powers, they'll probably go away after the pup is born. I haven't been using my powers because I'm afraid of hurting him," she answered.

Sesshoumaru mentally noted that the pattern on her belly reminded him somewhat of a map, but he was fairly certain that was one of those things about her appearance that he was not supposed to mention.

"And this?" he asked, pointing to the dark line that ran from her belly button to her pubic bone.

"I don't know. I think most women get that. It's normal," Kagome replied.

Her body and the changes it had undergone were oddly fascinating to him. He had certainly seen pregnant women before and had witnessed Katsu's birth, but it was an entirely different issue when it was his mate carrying his pup. He had been so stressed about everything that he hadn't really had a chance to simply marvel at the little miracle that was growing inside of Kagome's womb.

"I need to go to the bathroom," Kagome said.

He helped her get to the washroom, and then twice again the next hour, and every half-hour after that. She dozed off in between bathroom breaks and he realized it was terribly ironic that the time when women needed to rest most was the time their bodies wouldn't allow them to do so.

In the middle of the night, Kagome nestled into his chest and inhaled his scent, something she had missed dearly. "Tell me a joke," she said.

He arched his brows. "Am I here to entertain you now?"

She snorted and kissed his chest. "Until I have this baby, yeah."

"Hm. Inuyasha is my chief political adviser," Sesshoumaru replied.

Kagome giggled and said, "Tell me you're not serious! I can just see him waving his sword around, cursing and giving orders."

"And that is exactly why he's a model politician. Why settle for diplomatic grace when one has Inuyasha? The world would be a better place if Inuyasha killed all the politicians anyway," he replied.

She smiled and kissed him. "I'm happy for you two."

He grunted and shrugged off the sentiment, but she grabbed his hand. "I mean it. It took a lot of bravery and strength to come as far as you and Inuyasha have. You're both happier now, and even stronger than you've ever been. I'm proud of you both."

Sesshoumaru wasn't really paying attention to Kagome. He had been with Inuyasha for months, so he didn't feel a particular need to talk about him. He felt an odd nervous fluttering every time he looked at her because it reminded him that very soon he would have a newborn pup to take care of and teach and love. From Rin, he had learned that being a father was probably the hardest thing in the world. Nothing else offered him so many worries or stress, or joy, for that matter.

He knew there were so many things he had done wrong with Rin. He let her see too much bloodshed, and it seemed to somehow it made Rin a little too acquainted with the presence of death. He failed to protect her more times than he wanted to remember, and Rin had paid with her life because of it.

He loved that girl to death, but it didn't make him a good father.

Inuyasha had mentioned once that while he was in Hell, he had a conversation with their father which ended in Touga's conceding that being the great in battle hadn't made him a good father. That much was true, and love clearly didn't turn a person into a model parent either. Sesshoumaru knew that if he found out what made a good father, he could become whatever was required of him, but he was sure the answer wouldn't come easily. In all likelihood, it was one of those truths of life that was meant to be learned by trial and error.

"Did you have a good father?" Sesshoumaru asked.

Kagome stared distantly for a moment, as if trying to find his face in her memories. "I don't really remember him. It seems like that longer that goes by, the less clear he is in my mind. I remember he used to let me sit on his lap while he sang to me."

"This Sesshoumaru does _not_ sing," he thought out loud.

Kagome laughed and held his hand. "I guess you don't. That's probably a good thing, since you probably sound like a hound dog howling at the moon."

He had no doubts about Kagome. She was a wonderful creature with a big soul. She was warm, sweet, affectionate, and forgiving, several things that all mothers should be. It seemed effortless for her, slipping from mateship to maternity, and some part of him felt guilty for his own insecurities. He was sure Kagome probably needed him to be strong and encouraging.

He was totally unaware that Kagome was following a completely opposite line of thinking until he smelled her tears. "What's wrong?" he asked.

Kagome sat up and crossed her legs, then rubbed her naked belly under the open kimono. "I'm so scared. What if I'm a bad mother? What if I can't protect the baby? I've seen so many bad things happen since I first came through the well and it's like I can't stop thinking that those bad things might happen to the baby."

The poignant image of Kagome's fearful tears rolling off her pregnant belly as she held it seared itself into his memory as Sesshoumaru tried to find something meaningful to say that wouldn't cheapen their fright. He found himself at a complete loss; there was nothing like this moment, nothing that reflected their fears and love as much as his gentle embrace did.

"Every dead body we've ever seen started out like this," she said as she leaned into his tender arms. "Somehow, everything seems so much more tragic knowing what it's like to love someone this much and to understand that everyone is someone's baby."

Sesshoumaru's brows knotted as he realized that this little revelation did, in fact, change everything. So many times in his life he had been around corpses, and not once had he realized that each of those lost lives meant the death of someone else's baby. The foes he had killed, the allies he lost, and the countless dead humans and youkai he had seen over the course of his life flashed through a mind that was undergoing the full transformation brought on by the upcoming birth of his child.

He suddenly found himself wondering what kind of father Onigumo had. It was the strangest chain of thoughts, but it seemed completely relevant to his stressed mind. Did his father love him? Was he a good father? Was Onigumo what he was because of bad parenting? The pragmatic half of him that had been trapped in the left-side of Sesshoumaru's brain slapped him, reminding him that some people were just plain evil.

He stumbled upon one of the conundrums of parenting and immediately recognized the puzzle as one that would haunt him indefinitely. If some people were just born with evil souls, and they had great parents, wouldn't they turn out to be evil anyway? Or, if evil parents raised someone with a good soul, would they grow up to be righteous? If the state of a person's soul really determined the outcome of their life, didn't that make parenting an obstacle to embracing what they were? Or, maybe love and parenting could change a person's heart. He had certainly evolved because of Kagome and Rin, and he wasn't exactly a pure soul before that.

Sesshoumaru shook his head in disappointment at the confused drivel clouding his brain. He never had to worry about Rin, since she came pre-packaged as the cutest, sweetest thing in the world and nothing seemed to be capable of changing that other than the combination of repeated deaths and puberty.

Kagome frowned and squeezed his hand tightly. "Our baby is Kohaku's reincarnation," she blurted out.

He gasped. "What? How would you learn such a thing?"

"A fortune teller told me. He knew I was from the future, so I know he wasn't lying. I just thought I shouldn't know that without telling you too," she said.

Sesshoumaru let out a sigh of relief and released the idea that his pup might be evil. Kohaku had such a pure soul, and he felt honored to get a second chance to care for the boy. He always believed there was probably a sweet child under all the layers of despair and upset that covered Kohaku's soul. "I suppose he won't remember anything," he said.

"He won't be Kohaku any more than I am Kikyou, which is why no one else needs to know. He shouldn't have to live his life being compared to Kohaku," Kagome replied.

They sat in silence for awhile, and Kagome slowly digested the fact that even though new lives often ended so tragically, it was only to begin again with new hope and a new life to be happy in. Kikyou died, and her soul went on to her, and she was able to be happy with Sesshoumaru.

"Everything is going to be okay," she whispered calmly.

He nuzzled her cheek in agreement.

"Your navel is inside-out," Sesshoumaru randomly remarked.

Kagome rubbed her belly button and smiled. "Guess what?"

"You need to go to the bathroom again?" he answered.

She grinned and playfully slapped him. "I've been thinking a lot about giving birth lately. Obviously I would, because you know…I mean, who doesn't think about it when they're pregnant? Not that I'm afraid of it, because I'm not."

Her babbling lips stalled when Sesshoumaru kissed her. "You're prattling again, Dear."

"I want to give birth like an animal," she said.

His eyebrows raised, his head tilted, and he glanced at her with the most confused expression she had ever seen. "Is there more than one way? I was under the impression that there was only one possible way to do that."

"Well, in my time, there are C-Sections, where they cut the baby out, but no, not now there isn't. What I mean is, it could be the most intense, intimate experience of our lives if we weren't sharing it with anyone else," Kagome explained.

"Is that safe?" Sesshoumaru asked. He knew that during Katsu's birth, Kagome hadn't had to do much. The pup came into the world just as it would have if no one else had been present. He had seen fleeting moments of complete passion between his brother and his mate that would probably have been best enjoyed alone.

Kagome nodded. "The earth is filled with animals that were born without the assistance of midwives and healers."

Sesshoumaru thought for a moment. The standard stated that he belonged outside, sitting in the hall, listening to Kagome's screams. He was sure he wanted to catch the baby, and watch his first breaths. He hadn't really considered that it could just be their moment and theirs alone, and Kagome's suggestion did appeal to him on a very primal level.

He forgot at times that humans were animals, but just under the surface of Kagome's generally peaceful blue eyes was a pregnant animal who was demanding that she return to those basic, natural instincts. Unlike most of the females of her species, she wasn't afraid of those desires, or of the painful fight required to give the pup life. She gave into that powerful, untainted intuition and asked him to do so as well.

A quick nod of his head gave her his answer. "If anything goes wrong, we can always get help. I'll make sure there's someone available."

After the next restroom break, he curled his body around hers and listened to her light slumber. Kagome wasn't perfect by any means, but there was no one else he could see himself sharing his life with. He wasn't sure he had ever met anyone who was forgiving enough to put up with him, and he had benefited from her grace more times than he wanted to think about.

Lying with her like that, he felt more content than he ever had. For most of his life, he had chased power, steel, and reputation, but nothing compared to actually wanting something tangible, something beautiful and warm. Her. There wasn't anything else he'd rather be doing, anyone else he wanted to be with, and nowhere else he'd rather be. His life was in order, his soul was clear of everything but the simple warmth that spread from his soul into his body and heart. He wasn't sure what to call what he felt; it was strange and new and wonderful all at once.

And then Sesshoumaru knew.

Happiness.

* * *

On the other side of the fortress, Rin and Sun finished talking each other into a state of exhaustion and decided it was time for bed, which brought some embarrassing, yet priceless moments.

Sun didn't want to rush Rin into anything, or make any assumptions about how things were going to proceed between them. "I uhh…my room is over here. If you want to sleep in there with me, I could sleep on the floor," he nervously mumbled.

"We could try sleeping in the same bed," Rin replied.

Her mate smiled and led her down the hall, opening the door for her. He turned his back when she changed into a clean yukata he left folded up on the bed, and she allowed him the same privacy. Sun put the two lamps on each side of the door out, followed by the one on his side of the bed, and then closed the shuttered windows, pulling the curtains until no light entered the room other than the small lantern on her side of the bed.

"Is it okay if I leave a little light?" Rin asked.

"Of course," Sun replied.

They stared at each other for a moment before sliding in between the sheets at the same time. Rin rolled over on her side to face him. "Goodnight," she said, kissing him gently on the cheek.

"Goodnight," he softly whispered.

A few minutes passed, and both were painfully aware that they were extremely awake and very alert. The object of their desire lay beside them, a shy thirst unquenched. It had been different before, each of them desperately clinging to each other. This night, their relationship felt shy and new, but far more stable and viable than it had during their night at the beach.

Sun's eyes dilated in the dark room, and he watched how the dim light from the lamp cast a warm, ethereal glow on Rin's skin. Some part of him as stunned that this beautiful young woman was his mate, and that he would get to sleep next to her for the rest of their lives. Well, until the end of hers. He wasn't ready to think of the ultimate cost of taking a human mate. She was beautiful and young and alive; he didn't want to think that someday all of that would change because it was simply her fate as a human to do so.

"Are you tired?" Sun asked, gently placing his hand over hers as it rested on the bed between them.

Rin sat up and gave him an adoring stare, and then slowly pulled on the silk tie that held the yukata on. "No," she said.

His eyes widened as the yukata slid off her shoulders and rustled as it fell into a pile around her. His heart instantly started to pound as he looked over her. The first time he had seen her like this, his mind had been clouded by desperation and lust, but now he had a chance to really look at her.

Rin blushed a little under Sun's scrutiny, but her nerves calmed when he groaned her name and stared at her as if he had been hypnotized. Her body bore some womanly traits, but they hadn't fully developed, which reminded him of a flower ready to bloom.

Sun sat up and gently kissed her lips, and then pulled her into his lap. "We don't have to do this if you don't want to," he whispered.

Delicate, beautiful, and full of life…yes, she was like a budding flower.

The metaphor finished itself in his mind and he gasped like someone had kicked him hard enough to make him loose his breath.

Rin put her hands on each side of his face. "Are you okay?"

She would wilt.  
She would die.

Rin wasn't his to keep forever, only his to care for while the life cycle of humanity turned over inside of her little body. It didn't matter how many times she cheated death, because it had always been her destiny to die. She would never even see him fully grasp his own power, something that would inevitably take centuries.

His mate knew the look on his face all too well; she had seen it so many times on Sesshoumaru. It was dark, intense, and seeing it meant that Sesshoumaru was about to leave for reasons completely unexplained. She always suspected she knew what caused that expression, and seeing it on Sun confirmed her suspicion. From being around Sesshoumaru, she had learned something very important — her mortality was _not_ something an immortal ever wanted to discuss with the mortal they had become attached to.

"Go," she said.

Sun frowned and ran a shaking claw through her hair. "I just need to clear my mind," he calmly said.

A few minutes later, Sesshoumaru sensed someone walking across the roof. All the way across, and then back, and then the cycle repeated; Sun was pacing frenetically across the stone roof, he realized. Kagome had dozed off, so he maneuvered slowly out of her arms, careful not to wake her, and then joined the boy on the roof.

His instincts told him to beat Sun until he coughed up his kidneys because he smelled like Rin, but he decided he would probably get in trouble for that. "Is Rin all right?" he asked.

Sun nodded. "She's fine."

"You're trembling and pacing across the roof in the middle of the night," Sesshoumaru replied.

Since he had known Sun for quite some time and never seen behavior like this, he assumed Sun was reacting to something that happened between him and Rin, which worried Sesshoumaru.

"I want to spend the rest of my life with her," he said.

Sesshoumaru's mouth formed a deep scowl as he realized that this was going to be a conversation about Rin's mortality. "You know that is impossible," he said.

Sun nodded. "It's not fair."

"Life was never fair. It isn't supposed to be," Sesshoumaru replied.

"She's going to die, and there's nothing I can do to stop it," Sun said.

Sesshoumaru stiffened at the words. He pitied the boy on several thousand levels, having suffered through losing Rin. He couldn't imagine how much worse it would be for Sun when the time came. Explaining how much it hurt to deal with that excruciating pain wouldn't make Sun realize that he had a wonderful young woman to take care of for however long Rin would be allowed to live.

Then, he considered telling Sun how Inuyasha had lost the first person he ever loved, and went on to love again. That was definitely the wrong thing to say, however true it was. Sesshoumaru had lost Rin to the Wind Scar and dealt with that loss. The world seemed to stop for awhile, but his life certainly hadn't ended.

Sesshoumaru finally spoke with a voice surprisingly weighted by emotion. He didn't want Sun to do something stupid, or realize the truth too late. Rin's happiness was literally dependent on Sun understanding what it meant to love someone who would die. "You can't give her a long life, but you can give her a happy one. I failed her when she was young because I didn't want to be so close to a mortal, but when she was gone, I couldn't stop thinking about how much I wished I had just enjoyed and appreciated her."

Sun felt a strong conviction rise up in him as he understood that the quality of life Rin would have was largely dependent on him, and how he dealt with her mortality. It wasn't fair to penalize her for what she was with his worry and fear. He was a man, her man, and he would do everything he could to make her happy.

He went back to Rin and slipped in between the sheets silently, and then kissed her neck.

Rin shivered when the shy boy she loved rolled her over and began kissing and touching her with a sense of passionate bravery she hadn't seen from him yet.

"I love you," he whispered.

He swore to himself he'd say it as often as possible since everyday they lived was one day closer to the day she wouldn't be there to hear it.

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**Please Review!**

**Chapter Twenty-Four — Birth**

Author's Note: I was sitting in the Ob/Gyn's office the other day and read this magazine article about women who were choosing to give birth naturally without the hospitals and devices and metal instruments. It was interesting. The complication rate is actually about the same or lower than in hospital births, since many are caused by blunders made by medical professionals. Anyway, the stories were so intense and intimate and inspiring. This story is about intense, so I decided to change things up a bit.

Also, Rin is not going to become an immortal.

Special thanks to TAJE, musicallady1, TheMikoShivae, MuppyPuppy, llebreknit, gettogoth, cleoclaudia, Foxfire Inari, Mia, j.j. ryan, .Smart.Ass.Punk., Kiki.s2, xXNo-life-kingXx, LadySafire, kagome past and present, TONI, trinity3000, Assassin of Legends, ArizonaBay, Tajia, sayuri-girl, flirtymiyu, juusan'ya, Amadoni, mangadreams, this kagome, LadyCupid, lady555, kittyb78, and Dominik Journot!


	24. Birth

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**Exhilaration**  
_By Miss Kagura_  
Chapter Twenty-Four —Birth

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Kagome bit down on her lip, and tried not to let on that she was in pain. These random contractions had been bothering her off and on for the last months, and she had gotten past thinking that the next might be actual labor. She had reconciled with the fact that she would be pregnant forever, and forced to stay within fifteen meters of a place to urinate for the rest of her life.

"Nnggh," she winced finally and drew the attention of Inuyasha, who had been assigned the task of watching her while Sesshoumaru had a meeting with Kouga. The meeting wasn't far, but Sesshoumaru still didn't want Kagome to be left alone much.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

Kagome smiled. "Are you…asking about…my feelings?"

"Duh, you're about to have a baby. Or explode, whichever comes first," Inuyasha replied.

She narrowed her eyes, shooting him the death glare she had learned from her mate. "If I had the Shikon Jewel, I'd wish you into a permanently pregnant human woman," she hissed.

"Thems fightin' words, Kagome," Inuyasha teased.

She relaxed as the pain subsided and grinned at him. "You want to hear a fighting word?" she panted.

"No! Not that word!" he exclaimed.

Kagome stood and paced for a few minutes, and then growled. "I want to go for a walk. I'm so restless and Sesshoumaru flips out if I'm not resting," she said.

"He's just worried," Inuyasha replied. "I'll take you for a walk, or waddle in your case."

They made slow progress along the shoreline, and Inuyasha tried to recall what he had been told about walking from Abi's pregnancy. He was sure it was important at this stage in pregnancy, but he couldn't remember why.

"I kinda wish my mom was here. I've been thinking about her a lot lately," Kagome said.

Inuyasha nodded. "I liked your mom. She was such a nice lady. She reminded me of my mother in some ways."

His hand loosely enveloped hers. "You're going to be a great mother, Kagome, so stop worrying."

"What makes you think I'm worried?" Kagome asked.

"I dunno. Abi started babbling on about her mother before Katsu was born. Maybe it's normal," he said.

She smiled and leaned on him. "I'm glad things turned out like this. There was a time it didn't seem like any of us would ever be happy, but here we are."

"Keh. Here we are, going for an afternoon waddle because my brother knocked you up. Perfect!" he said.

"You don't take very much seriously, do you?" Kagome asked.

Inuyasha shrugged. "Not really. Life is kind of a joke when you think about it. I was so hooked on Kikyou, and now that I'm Abi, I feel so guilty that I'm glad I'm not with Kikyou. It's kind of sick."

"That's not sick. I mean, I'm glad I'm not with you. You're the reason I kept coming through that well, and I was so sure we'd have some sort of fairytale ending," Kagome replied.

"The story ended up being a little too fucked up for a fucking fairytale," Inuyasha said. "Brothers trying to wreck each other, hot priestesses, perverted cat youkai…no one would tell their children a story like that. Hell, I won't tell my pups that."

Kagome dropped to her knees in the sand and gave Inuyasha a fearful glance.

"Well shit, now I remember," Inuyasha thought out loud. Walking helped women go into labor. He picked her up, and felt her nails dig into the back of his neck.

"Owww!" she moaned.

"I'm sure it's just like earlier. We'll get you back, everything will calm down. It's all okay," he said.

A gush of warm liquid that nearly soaked his haori and hakama said otherwise, and he dropped her when his senses were assaulted but the scent of the amniotic fluid, which was dripping off him. Luckily, the sand didn't hurt Kagome when she landed on her bottom, but Inuyasha found that he could not move.

It was the most disgusting experience of his life, by far.

"Fuck Kagome! Did you have to do that?!" he screeched.

Kagome's fingers clutched her belly and she growled at Inuyasha, "Osu…wari!"

He crashed to the ground, cursing into the sand. "What was that for?"

"For being so dense! My water just broke and you're yelling at me like it's my fault!" she shouted.

The contraction faded and Kagome relaxed, panting on the ground. "This is it. I'm really having the baby. I need Sesshoumaru!"

Inuyasha moved to help her up again, but she shook her head. "Just bring him back to me," she said.

He nodded and took off, racing to Sesshoumaru. It didn't take him long, since Sesshoumaru didn't want to be too far away. He stripped his fire rat haori off, trying to emancipate himself from the smell of amniotic fluid. The unfamiliar scent the pungent odor hid was committed to his memory because it was the scent of his nephew, the son of his brother and the girl that saved his life and soul a few times.

He found Sesshoumaru and Kouga standing in the woods, arguing about something comparatively irrelevant.

"What are you doing here, Mutt-Face?" Kouga growled.

"Kagome just went into labor!" Inuyasha yelled.

Kouga sniffed at Inuyasha and then burst out laughing at Inuyasha's disgusted expression and the strange aroma coming from him. Inuyasha growled and swung the haori in his arms like a whip, hitting Kouga on the side of the face. It left a trail of moisture across his cheek and rather bad expression on his face.

"Did you just put baby juice on me?" Kouga growled.

Sesshoumaru watched the display of juvenile behavior with feigned interest as the gears in his mind turned. Kagome… Labor…Finally, it all clicked into place and he leapt into the air, traveling at speeds surprisingly fast, even for him. He only briefly stopped at the fortress, assuming Kagome's scent on the beach nearby meant that she wanted to be there. He grabbed a basket of things she packed and two large jugs of water.

His heart was pounding erratically which made him feel ridiculous. He had known this was coming for months. They had talked about it, planned it, and waited for almost two weeks since Kagome's return. Yet, now that she was in labor, he felt nervous and worried all over again.

Sesshoumaru found her walking through the wet sand, rubbing her belly with one hand.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

She turned and smiled. "I'm fine," she sarcastically replied.

Sesshoumaru suddenly felt awkward and didn't know exactly what to do. He had expected a panted, crying woman, but she was simply standing there like nothing was wrong. "Is there something I should do?" he asked.

"I'm fine, I haven't had a contraction for a couple of minutes," she replied. "Walk with me?"

He put everything down on a nearby rock and took her hand, carefully monitoring her with his senses. She was starting to sweat a little, probably from nerves and the labor pains, and it smelled a little different than she usually did. She told him what doctors knew in her time about the chemicals the body produced, and he assumed the peculiar smell was whatever hormone told her body to go into labor.

Sesshoumaru held her up when the fingers tangled with his clenched his hand impossibly tight with the next pain. He could tell from her clenched teeth and tightly closed eyes that she was fighting the urge to acknowledge the pain by making noise. He lightly kissed behind her ear and nuzzled her cheek. "Let it out, Kagome."

Only when she released the whine she had been holding in did she realize she had been holding her breath. "…hurts…" she murmured.

"You're giving birth. It's supposed to," he replied, knowing it might have gotten him purified if Kagome's attention wasn't focused on the pain in her belly.

The pain faded, leaving Kagome panting in Sesshoumaru's arms. "Ow," she said. She was already covered in a thin veil of sweat, which was relieved marginally by the cool wind that blew. Her kimono was already wet from her water breaking, so she discarded it, along with her sandals. "Is this okay with you?"

"I will never complain about your nudity," Sesshoumaru replied. "That is, after all, how all this started, hm?"

"Actually, I was wearing the blue dress you gave me, remember? You pushed it up around my waist while we were off training, and the rest is history," Kagome teased.

For the billionth time, Sesshoumaru thanked the gods for sending him such a good-natured woman. He had heard horror stories about many a demoness that threatened castration and other forms of physical harm during labor. Here was his beloved Kagome, teasing and smiling despite the fact that she was clearly going through periods of intense pain.

The next contraction shot a wave of intense pain into her lower back. "My back!" she whimpered as she slid down to the ground and propped herself up on her hands and knees. "This is stupid. I'm not giving birth through my spine!" she complained.

Sesshoumaru felt useless to do anything but listen to her and rub her back. He was well aware of the pangs in her body, since his ears picked up on the sharp spasms of her womb. He simply watched as Kagome labored on her hands and knees, clenching the sand every few minutes.

"We should be keeping track of how often these happen and how long they last," Kagome commented in between pants as another contraction passed.

"They are marginally increasing in frequency and duration, occurring roughly every third minute for a minute," he said.

For some odd reason unknown even to Kagome, his nonchalant response angered her greatly. She was having a baby! Who says something that precise so effortlessly when their mate is having a baby! The phrase 'having a baby' repeated itself over and over in her head, and suddenly she grasped her belly. "Sesshoumaru?"

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

"I'm having a baby!" she replied. "What if I'm a bad mother? What if there's something wrong with the baby? What if something goes wrong with the birth? What if—"

Sesshoumaru bit a couple of his claws off and arched his brows.

Kagome stopped when a careful finger slipped inside of her. "What are you doing?! I'm in labor!"

"Checking to see if you have progressed at all," he replied.

"How would you know how to check?" she asked.

Sesshoumaru rolled his eyes and said, "I know where the mouth of your womb is and I am not ignorant of the fact that it must open in order for you to give birth so you can put your foolish fears aside. And about three of these 'centimeters' you speak of."

Kagome frowned and groaned as another contraction ripped through her body, this one seeming a little more painful than those that had preceded it. She cried shamelessly as it wore on, and sat up into a squat so she could clench her belly with stiff fingers.

Sesshoumaru placed his sweating hands on her belly as she leaned on him. He hated seeing her in pain, especially since most of the time that had been the case, he was somehow involved. People always thought that he and his brother were strong for all their successes in battle, but Kagome had the rare type of strength that was as versatile as it was pure.

She went limp and twisted her head. He bent his head and they kissed as he held his hands over hers on her belly. "I love you," she said.

It wasn't something they said often, and not because they didn't often love each other. Their love was something that needed no constant reinforcement, no acknowledgement; it simply _was_. It had blossomed out of pain and lust, love and sacrifice. So when Kagome came out and said it, it was a reflection of how overcome with that feeling she was as her body phased in and out of intense pain.

He never said it just because she said it, because he felt it would cheapen the phrase. Kagome understood him and all of his intricacies, so he merely nuzzled her in response and encouraged her. "It'll be over soon, and then you'll be holding our pup."

"Are you really as calm as you seem right now?" Kagome asked.

"Absolutely not," he calmly replied. "I believe this is what you call my 'Poker Face.'"

More kissing…

If someone asked him if he believed in love at first sight, he might say yes, or he might simply stare at the asker for saying something so silly. He loved her the first time he saw her; not the first time his eyes fell on her, but when he saw through her. Her sacrifice, her passion, her heart, her loyalty, her intelligence, her beauty…she was no longer the frightened girl that clung to his little brother. He knew Kagome in a way no one else was allowed, in a way he wouldn't want to know anyone else.

Sesshoumaru kissed Kagome, knowing even her strong heart was fragile at times like this. She loved to doubt her decisions, and then hated herself for doing it. He found this particular quirk adorable even as it frustrated her. "You know if I thought you would be anything short of a wonderful mother, I wouldn't have given you this pup," he said.

Kagome nodded as the next contraction hit her. They were getting stronger fairly quickly, and she wasn't sure if it was due to the fact that her pup was a hanyou or not. Maybe she was just going to be lucky?

"Do you want to lie down?" he asked.

She nodded and when the pain had passed, he took a blanket out of the basket she packed and carefully laid it out next to a rock. He eyed the thick, soft blanket that was still in the basket, feeling an odd sense of anxiety in knowing it was to wrap up the pup that would soon be born. His fingers ran over the fabric, and he found himself questioning whether or not it was soft enough for the skin of a newborn. He knew it was, but he still questioned whether or not it could be softer, since he was the father and it was his job to provide such things.

He sat with his back against the rock, and his legs spread out. Kagome sat in between them, and bent her legs over his.

For hours they stayed like this, and as Sesshoumaru listened to her pants and pained cries, he found the same doubts Kagome had.

Would he be a good provider?

The money wasn't the issue. His family had always been wealthy, and yet he had only given Rin the bare minimum. He thought at the time he was doing her a favor since she was untainted by any form of materialism and the lack of 'things' helped keep her that way. She loved flowers and sunshine, neither of which she could hold on to for any period of time. Flowers wilted, the sun set, and she was left in the dark night with decaying beauty.

Sesshoumaru understood now. The presence of things in a person's life helps to give them some hold on reality. A doll, a blanket, a bed to sleep in… These were things that offered comfort in their permanence. He could vaguely remember dragging a blanket around for his early years because he had bonded with it in the absence of his mother's affection. His mother found it an abhorrent habit, and he had agreed with her in retrospect until he thought about it at that moment.

The problem was his distant mother, not the blanket he had bonded with in her place.

He told Kagome about his blanket in hushed tones in between contractions, and she squeezed his hand tightly. Nothing dug up old childhood scars like pregnancy, and his story helped her understand something about him no one else possibly could. Sesshoumaru gave his emotional bonds physical value by attaching possessions to them. Tessaiga represented the relationship he had with his father, which he could never really accept until he released his need to possess that sword.

That weakness, a subtle oddity that should have faded with this childhood, nearly drove him to destruction. In turn, he probably subconsciously decided to not allow Rin to follow in his footsteps.

As the hours wore on, Sesshoumaru's childhood came unraveled in his own mind and he faced all the things he had neatly tucked away. The things his parents did that hurt him, the fears he had as a child, the way he cried when his father came home wounded from battle…he felt like he was reliving it in fast motion. Disapproving glares, falls, failures, and strife grated at his soul all over again, feeling new and yet familiar at the same time.

This time, everything was different than any other time he had ever reminisced about his early years. Instead of crashing into his soul, he let those memories wash over him. His parents failed him many times; he would learn from their mistakes. Everything he had been through, however terrible and painful, suddenly became valuable as wretched memories offered him their wisdom.

He let go of a thousand horrible memories, knowing the wisdom they held allowed him give his son a better life, and for that, he'd suffer any fate. The pain was intense, but it subsided like the labor pains Kagome was struggling against and left him feeling clean and free of his own past.

By midnight, Kagome had completely turned inside of herself, toiling to bring their pup into the world. The contractions were intense and long, and she could feel her body was nearly ready. She was covered in sweat, and the wind did little to cool her.

As her uterus contracted again, she squeezed Sesshoumaru's hands as hard as she could, and made no effort not to scream. It hurt so much more than she had imagined, but Kagome weathered them all without regret. This painful experience was what life demanded she endure to bring her pup into the world.

Their baby was the manifestation of the love she held on to so tightly. Their love had taken her life apart and put it back together better than it had ever been. The thing that amused her most was that he was nothing like she thought her 'Prince Charming' would be. Sometimes, yes, he was still cold. He would _always_ be cold just like Inuyasha would always be a hot-head and she would _always_ love Sesshoumaru just the way he was. He hadn't really changed in terms of his character since they fell in love, and that was okay with her.

Kagome was starting to form some very strong opinions. Or discover them. She wasn't sure if her feelings had always been like they were, but she was becoming acutely aware of them as she grew older. She didn't think love should ever change a person's character. In Kouga's case, she was somewhat disgusted by the fact he changed the way his entire species acted to gain her approval. It was disingenuous and superficial; those were two sentiments love could never disguise itself in.

Her contractions were becoming incredibly unbearable, leaving her barely a minute in between. She could feel the intense pressure start to move the baby down.

Sesshoumaru was left feeling as helpless and useless as he had for most of the night, and offered his sincere encouragement along with two hands for her to squeeze. "It's almost over, Kagome," he said.

"You said that six hours ago!" she shouted in exasperation. "And six hours before that!"

With the next pain, she broke down and started crying. "It hurts! And…I need to push!"

She ground her teeth together in determination and stiffened her body as she bore down for several seconds. "Nnnngggh!" she screamed, from the pain, exertion, and excitement all mixed together in one strange emotional cocktail.

Something instinctive seized Sesshoumaru as she started to push, and he felt his vision start to tint red. The dog in him sprang into control, protecting his whelping bitch in her vulnerable state. He gave into it, knowing that it would pose no threat whatsoever to Kagome or the pup. His flared out aura assured most of the youkai in the western area that they needed to stay the hell away from him for awhile.

Kagome relaxed and panted, and then looked up at him with a big smile. "It's almost over!" She noticed his eyes, but didn't pay them much attention. If anything, she was glad to see she wasn't the only one governed completely by nature. She craned her neck and kissed his lips, and he returned it with a lick to one cheek.

Half an hour later, he was sure she was about to pass out from exhaustion, but Kagome persevered somehow. She looked so tired, but her heart was racing, and she was more excited than she had ever been in her life. She collapsed against his chest and watched his wide eyes as he supported the pup's head.

She closed her eyes, and pushed again, forcing the pup into his father's waiting hands.

Sesshoumaru brought the newborn up and Kagome took him in her arms. The pup opened his blue eyes, and let out a tiny puppy whine as he realized he was definitely not in his warm, cozy home. His senses were overwhelmed and he felt cold.

Kagome turned and Sesshoumaru carefully wiped him off with soft cloth, patting his silky newborn skin and hair dry. The newborn reached decibels unimaginable when Sesshoumaru wiped off his tiny little dog ears, which flattened again in anger.

They gave him an examination of sorts. Ten tiny fingers and ten even smaller toes, all topped with soft claws. His eyes were big and blue, like Kagome's, and his hair was silky and silvery-white, like Sesshoumaru's. His body was marked with the same magenta lines that Sesshoumaru bore, including the markings above his eyes, which showed off his brilliant eyes.

When Kagome delivered the afterbirth, he took the pup and cut his umbilical cord, breaking the bond with his mother. Sesshoumaru gently wrapped him in the thick blanket and gave him back to Kagome, who stared at the pup in awe.

He was at an equal loss for words. What does a person say when the most amazing thing in their life happens?

The pup calmed down and stared up at his mother as his nose made the instinctive connection between the only scent he had ever known and the face that beamed down at him. When she lifted him to her breast, he started to suckle gently.

"Koinu," Sesshoumaru purred as he watched his perfect, healthy son take his first meal.

"Hello, Koinu," Kagome gently said to the newborn.

Sesshoumaru's arms wrapped around her and he kissed her cheek softly. The moment was so delicate, so memorable, and so intense that he couldn't bring himself to say anything that would tarnish it. 'Thank you,' for his gratitude would hardly give credit to their love. 'I love you,' was so general that it failed to grasp the unique nature of what he was witnessing.

Despite the fragile nature of the moment, it was loaded with complex emotions that bent and twisted into a beautiful mess that made his chest feel tight as the lump in his throat became somehow harder to swallow. Once, he had seen an infant that looked like this one. In fact, Koinu looked nearly identical to his brother when he was a pup, except for the markings and eye color. Inuyasha's existence had filled him with hate, but this amazing little creature in his arms made his soul nearly boil over in warmth.

The pup's ear twitched in irritation and he started screaming again. The booming, unfamiliar sound frightened him, although Kagome hadn't heard it. She saw the way Sesshoumaru grinned and then rubbed the pup's furry head in reassurance.

"Thunder," Sesshoumaru answered when she looked up at him in question. "It's time to go home."

When they got back to the fortress, Inuyasha was waiting for them. He had sensed the small hanyou aura and assumed correctly that Kagome had given birth.

Inuyasha smiled warmly at Kagome, who was cradled in Sesshoumaru's arms. "Congratulations," he said, kissing her lightly on the forehead. "You look exhausted."

"Would you mind holding Koinu while Sesshoumaru helps me cleaned up?" Kagome asked.

He nodded and took the bundle, and then pushed the fabric back to reveal the blue-eyed hanyou. When he heard the door close, he gently cradled Koinu and sat down. "Hey there, Koinu," he said.

Koinu started to cry and whine when Kagome's scent moved out of range, and Inuyasha frowned at the jumbled sounds the baby made. "I know, I know. You can cry like a human baby or whine like a puppy, but you don't know which. It's not going to get easier, either. You will always be confused. Just do whatever feels right. It's okay to be different from everyone else."

Inuyasha lightly touched the furry dog ears and smiled at the pup. "You know, you're a hanyou. And even if people don't try to kill you, a lot of them still won't like you. That's okay though, because who wants to be friends with someone stupid and superficial? When you're a hanyou, you know those people that stay with you really, really care about who you are. Those are the only people that matter."

Inuyasha shook his head as he realized that Kagome now had a pair of ears to tweak whenever she wanted. "Poor little guy. You don't even know what you're in for, do you?"

As much as he didn't want to admit it, seeing Koinu made him feel very afraid for the boy. It was so hard to survive as a hanyou when he was little, and he didn't want to imagine that a child born from such loving relationship could be treated so horribly. He understood all too well the challenges Koinu would face. He would feel confused, out of place, and unwanted at times.

He vowed to help the tiny newborn make his own unmistakable mark on the world.

"Never wish you were a youkai or a human, Koinu. I've been human on many a moonless night and I'm a taiyoukai now. You've got the best of both worlds and the only one who understands what that means is you," Inuyasha said.

Inuyasha noticed the pup was falling asleep and rolled his eyes. "Fine, go to sleep on me. We'll have this talk again in about a decade."

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**Please Review!**

_**Chapter Twenty-Five: Epilogue **_

Author's Note: It's really ending next chapter. Thank you all for reading! It's been quite a journey, and with the Epilogue, we'll tie up the story, take a look into the future, send Sun and Abi to OC Heaven, never to be written about again, and end the story on a happy note. Sorry about this chapter. I've never given birth, unless one counts kidney stones, so I didn't know exactly what a woman thinks at this time. 

Special thanks to aries vs. leo, Miyake Namie, this Kagome, saakura Lady of the West, no life king, Sienna-shirou, ladyofGods, Britt-sempai, Lady Safire, juusan'ya, .Smart.Ass.Punk., kagome past and present, kagsesslover14, Cookie Defender, kibi.s2, elvenarcher516, ArizonaBay, MuppyPuppy, Dominik Journot, sayuri-girl, mangadreams, TruGemini, and Toni!


	25. Epilogue

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Exhilaration  
_By Miss Kagura_  
Epilogue — Good Morning

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**Five Years Later…**

Sesshoumaru stared at his brother, who was covered head to toe in mushy rice mixed for the second pup he and Abi had welcomed into the world. The pup, named Touga after their father, laughed madly and used one hand to hold a wad of Inuyasha hair and the other to smear puppy food in it. When Inuyasha put the bowl down to save his hair, Touga grabbed it and threw it right on top of Inuyasha's head.

"That hat suits you," Sesshoumaru said.

Just when he thought it couldn't get any worse, a ball bounced off the side of his head and Katsu ran in and grabbed it. "Sorry, Dad, it was an accident," he quickly said as he bounded through the house undoubtedly only steps ahead of Koinu. "By the way, nice hat," he added.

Koinu quickly followed, stopping only to grab a piece of beef from the kitchen. He pulled a piece off and Touga ate it happily. "Good puppy," Koinu cooed.

Touga clapped and cheerfully said, "Puppy fed Inubaka!" He threw a handful of the mess at his father to show his cousin what he had been doing.

"Nice hat, Uncle!" Koinu said as he ran to escape from Inuyasha.

"Hey!" Inuyasha growled and stepped toward the baby. He slipped on the floor and landed on his back, and then stared up at the ceiling for awhile as he heard Koinu and Katsu bounding around the house the way their mothers always told them not to do.

Sesshoumaru sighed and said, "That was no accident."

"You think?" Inuyasha sarcastically spat. He sat up and used a cloth to wipe off his face. "Why did we have kids again?"

"Because making them is fun," Kagome chirped as she entered the kitchen. "Nice hat!"

Inuyasha picked the bowl up and threw it across the room at Kagome, purposefully missing her. Touga only found this funnier, well aware that he had quite literally driven his father crazy.

The pup clapped and pointed at Inuyasha. "Inubaka dirty! Bath time for bad doggy-daddy!"

Inuyasha stubbornly stood up, got a clean bowl, filled it with food, and sat down on the floor. He pulled the pup onto his lap, facing away from him, and used one hand to hold Touga's arms. The other hand he used to operate a pair of chopsticks. "You will eat this, because I ain't feeding you ever again if you don't. You'll starve."

"Inuyasha!" Kagome exclaimed.

Touga begrudgingly opened his mouth and allowed Inuyasha to put a little food in his mouth. He chewed slowly and swallowed, and then mechanically opened his jaws for the next bite.

Sesshoumaru took poured tea for him and his mate. "Both of your pups are monsters."

Inuyasha glared at Sesshoumaru. "What makes you say that?"

"They're yours. Katsu set you on fire for crying out loud," Kagome replied. "They're impatient, rude, like their father, and mischievous, like their mother. Hey, where is Abi anyway?"

Inuyasha hung his head. "Morning sickness," he whined.

Sesshoumaru and Kagome gave each other an amused look. "Another one? Someday, Japan's West will be run by your spawn," Sesshoumaru said, envisioning the adult version of the roguish pup. "Thankfully, I'll be dead when that happens. I win again, Little Brother."

Inuyasha's mood softened when Touga stopped struggling and happy munched on the food he offered. Familiar paternal warmth emanated from his heart to the rest of his body, and he smiled into Touga's hair. "That's right. You're just like your Daddy. The quickest way to make peace with you is to stuff your face."

He had always wanted a big family, but it had been out of reach for so long. Their family unit was becoming increasingly extensive and had grown unbelievably close over the years.

Inuyasha finished feeding the pup and carried him off screaming to their much needed bath, since both were now thoroughly covered in food, leaving Sesshoumaru and Kagome alone with their tea.

Sesshoumaru arched his brows and said, "My brother is going to be one of those youkai who produces dozens and dozens of offspring."

"You're just now figuring that out?" Kagome replied. "They'll all be little monsters, like Inuyasha. Genetics! I bet there's an 'Inuyasha Gene' he keeps on passing along."

"Your time and your idiotic sciences. Did it really take hundreds of years for humans to realize stupidity runs down family lines?" he asked.

Kagome frowned and playfully slapped his arm. "You're a real jerk sometimes."

"You're just now figuring that out?" Sesshoumaru answered in a mocking tone.

The taiyoukai glanced down at his mate, who had grown quite a lot over the years. Unsurprisingly, she was a model mother, although Koinu was sweet, shy, and quite well-behaved compared to his cousins. The real shock came when Kagome slipped into the role of priestess again. She was the taiyoukai-slaying subject of much legend after only a few years.

Sesshoumaru could remember one particular incident that made him realize that Kagome had grown into a mighty little priestess. He and Inuyasha were fighting a dragon taiyoukai like Ryuukossei and when he would hurl balls of energy at them, Kagome would hit them with her arrows, without fail. When the dragon made the mistake of calling Kagome a 'whore,' she flew over his head, and used her weapon to purify him into oblivion. There was nothing at all left to prove he ever existed when she was done other than her defiant scowl. Then, she rushed home to breastfeed Koinu, who was only a few months old at the time.

The taiyoukai poured another cup of tea and pushed it to the side of the table untouched by Touga's mess. Seconds later, Rin came bouncing into the room and sat down. "Good morning!" She crinkled her nose and frowned. "Ewww…you guys didn't let Inuyasha cook again, did you?"

"We need to find a cook that doesn't mind a dog bite now and then," Kagome said.

"Or, we could simply teach the dogs not to bite. Katsu's birthday is approaching, and I'm sure a set of Subjugation Beads would suit him well," Sesshoumaru said.

"You're terrible," Rin playfully replied.

Sesshoumaru's head bounced forward as a ball impacted him from behind. Katsu ran in and grabbed it, offering a quick apology. "Sorry, accident," he mumbled.

"I'm sure," Sesshoumaru said.

Just as Katsu tore out of the room again, Bakusaiga was hurled across the room and stuck in the wall mere centimeters from Katsu's face. He froze and turned to the taiyoukai with utter horror painted on his face. "Did you just throw Bakusaiga at me?!"

Sesshoumaru didn't even bother looking up when he replied. "Accidentally."

"What if you killed me?" Katsu squeaked.

Kagome and Rin simply ignored the exchange, as both knew there was no real danger. As the only human members of the household, no small amount of patience was required to deal with the youkai and hanyou they lived with. Kagome took another sip of her tea and then got up to help Rin make something that was actually edible.

"Poor Touga had to eat this. No wonder he made such a fuss," Kagome whispered.

Sesshoumaru glanced over to the giggling women and then back to his brother's son, who repeated the question. "What if you killed me?" he asked.

Sesshoumaru shrugged. "That's what Tenseiga is for. Accidents."

Katsu frowned and continued his flight, reminding himself not to anger his uncle, something he would likely forget before the day was over.

He was living peacefully in the same household as his brother, Inuyasha's assassin of a mate, the most powerful miko in all of Japan, and three children of varying species, age, and disposition. Even stranger, he loved it and had no desire to change anything. Only in their home could he have an entire day's worth of violence and excitement before he had finished his morning tea. Watching Inuyasha's pups inflict varying amounts of suffering upon him was also a major bonus.

Kagome left something to cook and disappeared in search of their son and Rin sat at the table across from him.

Sesshoumaru looked up to Rin, who was wearing an unusually bright smile. Fear spiked her scent as she slowly reached across the table with one shaking hand and took his. "Thank you," Rin said.

His eyes widened in confusion at the tears that welled up in Rin's eyes. "For what?" he asked.

Rin sniffled. "For giving me life, for protecting me, for teaching me, for jumping into Hell to save me…I couldn't list all the things you've done for me in an hour. You never gave up on me, even when I was ready to give up on myself!" she cried.

Sesshoumaru made the link between the big smile that was so quickly eclipsed by tears. There was only one thing that could make a woman act like that. "You're pregnant," he said.

"Yes!" Rin exclaimed, as if a heavy load had just been lifted off her shoulders. "How did you know?"

"You're acting like you've lost your mind," he calmly commented. "Congratulations," he said. The news had been long coming, considering that they had been mated for years and Rin expressed no small amount of glee when handling the pups.

The taiyoukai made a mental note to go for a very long trip to avoid being in the same house as Katsu, Touga, and two pregnant women. He would rather stand outside in the middle of a thunderstorm holding his Bakusaiga up like a lightning rod than hang around hormonal women and Inuyasha's pups at the same time.

Sesshoumaru took the last sip of his tea and headed to his office to do paperwork, having had his daily dose of excitement already. The most mundane things brought him satisfaction, and existing in that role where he was simply Sesshoumaru the father, mate, and alpha, he had softened quite a bit.

In the afternoon, he worked on teaching Koinu how to swordfight, although they ended up scrapping playfully instead. That attracted both Inuyasha and Katsu, and by the time the sun started to set, only Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru were still able to stay awake.

"I win!" Inuyasha said.

Sesshoumaru glanced to his side at his brother, who was laid out in the grass, equally unable to move. "Maybe in your dreams."

Inuyasha growled and closed his eyes. "I'll get you tomorrow," he yawned.

* * *

Inuyasha's eyes flicked open and he found himself staring at the Bone-Eater's Well. 

Hadn't that been destroyed? How did he get here? He mentally screamed as he realized he knew the view all too well.

It had all been a dream!

He looked down at his chest, where Kikyou's arrow still held him to Goshinboku. It was cold, dark, and he was alone again. The fantasy burned through his lonely heart as he realized he had done it again. He sometimes sank so deep into his own imagination to escape the devastating loneliness that he forgot where reality ended.

He fixed his gaze on the only thing he had been able to see for so many years —the Bone-Eater's Well. Inuyasha knew its secret; it was built over a soft spot in the earth that allowed things that fell into it to disappear deep into the ground. He could still smell the remains of everything they threw down the well shaft, since the flesh and bones went on to nourish the earth and the vegetation, including the cruel tree he had been sealed to.

The Bone-Eater's Well was not magical, and it was not going to save him.

Goshinboku, fed by the flesh of youkai that the well swallowed, forced all of its malice, and false hope to Inuyasha by poisoning his mind and making him feel like he was free, only to rip him back to reality just when everything seemed like it would be all right. It grew taller, feeding on his misery.

Inuyasha wasted eternity by weaving these intricate stories and allowing himself to become lost in them. They were all usually quite different, although there were some similarities between them. He always got to have a family, and he always made peace with his brother.

He liked to imagine Kikyou's betrayal wasn't really her. He still couldn't believe it. She would never betray him! The evidence suggesting otherwise stuck out of his chest, but he still made his excuses for her. In his imaginary world, it wasn't Kikyou. It was someone disguised as Kikyou that caused her to do this to him, to sentence him to this hell.

Even he knew it made no sense. If someone really wanted him dead, they could have done it. Inuyasha knew why he hung there. No one even cared enough to put him out of his misery, and considering how little it took to drive people to killing each other in a period where Japan was steeping in pointless bloodshed, his continued existence was proof of how no one in the world cared about him.

Inuyasha knew he might be there for a very, very long time. And nobody in the whole world gave a damn.

He stared at the well, cursing it, but wishing somehow that it would open up and a beautiful girl would leap out of it and save him from his horrid destiny. With every day that went by, he wanted that second chance more and more, until his broken heart burned in longing and he just dreamt it all up again.

If he had another chance, he'd prove Kikyou didn't betray him.

If he had another chance, he'd do whatever it took to make friends.

If he had another chance, he'd understand that power wouldn't make him happy.

If he had another chance, he'd make things right with Sesshoumaru.

But, he didn't have that chance, and knew he never would. All he could do was open and close his eyes, and stare at the well. He couldn't even move his head to look away from it, so it became his savior as his mind became more twisted and sick, binding him to the one that would save him.

She always looked like Kikyou, and she always loved him. And yet, even in his own fantasy, he always lost her. He was unworthy, he was crude, he was wicked, and he knew it. He didn't deserve the thing that he wanted most. What he deserved was…exactly what he had been given.

He let his mind slip back into the life he had made for himself, and dreamt about the sons he didn't have again. They were so handsome, with his silver hair, standing tall for their father. And their mother was such a handful, but he loved her. Abi was beautiful and promiscuous, and she loved him back. He hands were callused from fighting, but she always handled her lover so passionately.

Inuyasha blinked as Abi dissolved, no longer real in his mind. He had never been touched by a woman before, never loved they way he imagined she loved him. No one would ever have touched him, no matter how long he lived, because he was a hanyou. He was dirty, the filth of two societies that could agree on nothing except how disgusting he was.

Inuyasha was miserable and ashamed and so, so lonely. He prayed everyday that some merciful hunter would find him and end his terrible excuse for a life. Never once had he felt happiness, and he had given up on ever even understanding what it meant. His mind was filled with sickness and wishes that would never be granted, and so many years of hunger, pain, and solitude.

So, with nothing left to do, Inuyasha stared at the well again, waiting for his poisoned mind to entrap him again.

He heard the sound of his youngest calling his name and closed his eyes, telling himself it was the closest thing to real that he would ever know.

"Doggy-Daddy! Wake up time!" Touga yelled as he climbed onto the bed.

Inuyasha opened his eyes and smiled. "Good morning."

* * *

**…_And they all lived happily ever after._**

**The End**

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**Please Review!**

Author's Note: I'm sorry.

Author's Note Version 2.0: I don't think I've angered readers quite as much as I have with this ending, not even when I wrote a lemon oneshot between Inuyasha and Kagome's mother. This story has been bittersweet through and through, and I wanted to end it on that note, since it was such a strong theme. This journey was, for me, an opportunity to revel in the sick, dark realism that could exist in the characters lives. Their happiness, their anger, the lies they told themselves and the soul-shattering pain they had to endure just to finally understand what they needed...this ending packaged the whole story up under that twisted struggle to find happiness.

I wrote the epilogue eight times, and it never seemed right. I think sometimes that as authors we like to top off a story with a bunch of fluff, but it just didn't fit on this one. It was like spraying whipped cream on steak. This story was angsty and twisted and bittersweet, and slapping a fairytale ending on it just didn't work. It didn't even feel like the same story. I've read tons and tons of stories that end with a chapter describing their future children in far more detail than is necessary, or just basically explained what wonderful lives everyone lead. This story just couldn't end like that. It had to be like this.

Special thanks to Alanna-Sama, mangafreak007, siriushermionelover, TheMikoShivae. Tinabug, musicallady1, sayuri-girl, FluffyandKagome, Inuforlyf, TAJE, Crazy Yaoi Fangirl, Kibi.s2, no life king, dimplesland1992, llebreknit, .Smart.Ass.Punk., supersillee06, elvenarcher516, TruGemini, j.j. ryan, darknessofmyheart, kagsesslover14, kagome past and present, Amadoni, Cookie Defender, aimdiscord, ArizonaBay, helenluvsboo, toni juusan'ya, LadySafire, mangadreams, kittyb78, and aries vs. leo!


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